


Crossing Into Established Events

by FoxRafer



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxRafer/pseuds/FoxRafer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha accidentally finds herself in the wrong Doctor's TARDIS. But sorting out that confusion is put on hold as they must come to the aid of the Librarian and stop a mysterious alien from erasing the significant intergalactic achievements across the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Season 1, and Season 3 through "Blink."
> 
> [ **emmypenny**](http://emmypenny.livejournal.com/) created a great fanmix for this story: [**If Next Time Is This Time, Then This Time We'll Get It Right**](http://emmypenny.livejournal.com/325685.html). Check it out and let her know what you think. :-)
> 
> Huge thanks to my betas! To [**ribby**](http://ribby.livejournal.com/), who helped talk me down from many cliffs, who kept my internal critic at bay, who was always available to bounce ideas off of or to talk about the characters, and who wrestled my first long fic into something presentable. To [**mooms**](http://mooms.livejournal.com/), who helped make sure my characters sounded British, provided a great overall second edit, and gave me some lovely feedback. And to [**girlgriot**](http://girlgriot.wordpress.com/), who gave me tons of encouragement and helped with all my last-minute grammar and punctuation questions when I even started to forget how to spell my own name. Thanks to all of you!
> 
> And thanks to the [**scifibigbang**](http://scifibigbang.livejournal.com/) mods for organizing this and being so helpful throughout the process and so kind to a novice big bang writer.

It starts with the crumbling of asphalt. Unobtrusive, nearly silent in the rush of city life. Just a quiet patter of pebbles, white noise. The hushed disintegration builds, every brick, sheet of glass, every tile of marble almost gently dismantled from where they have lain for hundreds of years. No obvious clamor, only the barest of sounds as the air surrounding the city of True Paradise begins to swirl.

The residents begin to panic, to run, to scream. A steady tremor of fear floods the streets, bodies rocked as all sense of equilibrium escapes them. The ever-thickening atmosphere seems to flow through their skin, bubbles in their blood, as waves of low-level electricity pulse through them, setting every nerve-ending alight. And in the next instant, the cries turn to silence as they all vanish, sucked out of time.

The disturbance continues to spread, the earth slowly giving way beneath every road, every building, every park once filled with the shouts of children. At an almost leisurely pace, the entire city seems to melt away on a soft whisper of eroding stones, from the top of the highest skyscraper down to the deepest subterranean shelters. Where once stood gleaming spires and glass towers on a sea of concrete, where lush greenways and developed parkland once teemed with life, now there's nothing but stripped soil and the eerie remnants of construction and habitation. The barren ground absorbs what remains until all is quiet.

And if you asked someone about this once-glistening city on the hill, questioned them about the once-thriving metropolis and its transformative industry, they'd think you were mad. They'd say there was never any such city, there is no such technology. They'd wonder what kind of lunatic you were, thinking anyone would build anything on such inhospitable land.

But the city of True Paradise had been there; in all its glory it once stood in the now vast emptiness. And somewhere across the winds of time a lone soul weeps, mourning its loss.

  


Martha pulled her jacket a little tighter around her, trying to burrow in to ward off the biting wind. She walked quickly down the pavement, keeping her eyes focused on the corner, avoiding the shop windows as best she could. The empty streets and vacant shops were still unsettling, despite having been here for several hours, and the shadowy movements she saw out of the corner of her eyes, what the Doctor described as the Neo-liches, were even more unnerving. But if pressed she'd have to admit even to herself that she was concentrating so hard on the route back to the TARDIS because if she let her mind wander her anger and frustration would take hold, and on Omeis that could prove deadly. The Doctor said this place had a way of amplifying emotions, which the Neo-liches fed off; give them enough and they would engulf you.

This was another leg on the tour she had dubbed Rose's Greatest Hits and Martha was more than fed up with it. All of space and time just waiting to be explored and the Doctor seemed intent on a wander down memory lane. Maybe it stung more than it should, she was still seeing worlds she could only just imagine before they met. But there was something off-putting about it, like taking two steps forward and one step back. She'd think he was finally accepting her for who she was and then the next moment he didn't think her worthy of seeing something Rose hadn't already seen. Along with detailed play-by-play of her every word and deed.

"Like I'm some kind of ... second-class citizen," she mumbled into the silence, then turned the corner to find the TARDIS directly in front of her.

"How did you get here?" She placed a gentle hand on the machine as she walked around it, looking up and down the street for a sign of movement. Could the Neo-liches physically move something? The Doctor hadn't said. Then again the Doctor often didn't say. She walked back to the door, stroking her hand down the panel and trying the handle.

 _Still locked_ she thought, fishing the key from her pocket. _That's a good sign, right?_

Stepping inside, she made sure the door was firmly closed and locked, then had a quick look round the console room. _Even if they could move it there's no way they could get inside_ she reasoned to herself. _Let's just get the inorganic containment capsule and get back to the Doctor._ "Lab one, upper supply closet," she reminded herself as she quickly walked past the controls and stepped through the rear door.

  


He preferred the empty planets like this, those places that were devoid of recognizable life. Whenever he was surrounded by crowds, walking down busy city streets or in fields full of life, he felt more alone than ever. But Omeis felt like death; he could relax here, not think about genocide or the blood that stained his hands. He'd been around physical creatures for too long. Once this was taken care of he planned to drift for a while, maybe catch up on some reading. Avoid everyone, help no one, keep himself to himself.

Finding the Neo-liches here had been a surprise, but their shadowy barely-there existence was a welcome mirror. They reflected his psyche, his need for solitude, and in a strange way made him feel at home. Of course they needed to be stopped; too many lives would be lost if they were allowed to infest this system. He could transport them to good spawning grounds, away from sentient life, but first he had to find their nest.

He stopped, catching sight of himself in a window. He was still getting used to the ears. He'd had them for a while but they still felt foreign. Come to think of it he hadn't used this face much at all. A couple of expressions maybe, both of them on the stern side. He rubbed his hand across his hair, back to front; gave his chin a thoughtful stroke; and for a second he let himself smile, a wide toothy grin in the smeared glass, but it quickly faded. That felt foreign, too, but he wasn't inclined to find a reason to smile.

Behind him his eyes just barely caught a glimpse of a small flock of liches, phasing in and out of his conscious sight. "Right, get the job done," he spoke into the silence, pulling himself out of his head and back to the moment at hand. "There'll be time for that later."

  


Martha loved walking through the TARDIS, exploring all the rooms, all the passageways. She often wondered if it was possible to see everything, how much time would it take to know all her secrets or were there things about her even the Doctor didn't know. Lately she'd been spending more time alone when on board, almost feeling the TARDIS guide her as she wandered, discovering and learning.

She tucked the capsule under her arm as she stepped back into the console room just as the TARDIS door opened and a man in a black leather jacket and short-cropped hair walked in.

"Who are you?" she demanded, momentarily frozen in her track.

The man had also stopped on the ramp, looking at her with a mixture of surprise and hostility on his face. "I think that's what I should be asking," he said, barely contained anger punctuating his words.

Martha swallowed, quickly sizing him up. He was tall and fit, and she was fairly certain would get the best of her in a fight. "How'd you get in here?" she asked, slowly moving closer to the controls as she shifted the container back into her hands. It might knock someone out if it hit just right.

The man crossed his arms. "Again, my question."

"Look, I don't know what you think you've found here, but trust me..."

"The TARDIS wouldn't have just let you in." The surprise in his face changed to thoughtfulness, the antagonism to annoyance.

"You know what she's called?" Martha asked, confusion evident in her voice. "No one would know that unless..."

"I hope you haven't been fiddling with anything." He began to walk purposefully toward the console but Martha quickly moved to block his path.

"Think again, mate, you're not touching these controls."

He stopped a short distance in front of her, looked at Martha appraisingly, a growing respect mixing with the suspicion. The man slightly cocked his head to the side as if listening to someone.

"She likes you. It's almost as if she thinks she knows you. What was your name?"

"That's none of your business."

"Considering this is my ship I'd say it is."

"Your ship? This is the Doctor's."

"Yes."

"So get out!"

"You'll have to threaten me with more than an inorganic containment capsule if you want me to leave my own TARDIS."

"For the last time, this belongs to the Doctor."

"Yes, she does."

Martha was beginning to think this man was completely mad. And possibly even a little delusional. "Are you playing games with me?"

"No."

"Who are you?"

"The Doctor."

She laughed. "No, you're not. You might be able to pull that on other people but I know the Doctor so you're out of luck."

"Yes, I think you do, and I've been stupid not to realize that sooner. So, it's been nice to meet you, now please get out of here. Right now." He moved to the side of the ramp, extending his arm toward the door and gesturing for her to leave.

"Like hell, mister."

"I don't have time for this. This isn't _your_ TARDIS and you shouldn't be here."

"Not _my_ TARDIS?"

"When you came back for the containment capsule, was the TARDIS where you expected it to be?"

"I thought the Neo-liches had maybe moved it."

"They aren't corporeal. How exactly are they supposed to move anything?"

"I don't know, I thought maybe with their minds, like collective telekinesis or something."

"That makes sense," he said admiringly, his demeanor changing. "Very good, but wrong. They don't have the capacity to produce kinetic energy, but that was a good conclusion."

"Okay, so how did it end up here?"

"It didn't. This isn't your TARDIS, it's mine. Your TARDIS is still where you left it and you need to put down the capsule and go there now."

"But that's impossible, unless ... Oh my god, you must be another Time Lord!" Martha exclaimed. "The Doctor thought he was the only one, but the Face of Boe was right; he's not alone!" Martha was suddenly very excited, her happiness for the Doctor temporarily replacing her distrust. "So do all TARDISes look alike or something?"

"No."

"What, only this particular model?"

"She's unique. Now, please go find your..."

"Hang on a minute. You can't all go by the same name. Are you trying to impersonate him? Did you copy his TARDIS?"

At that moment there was a wrenching shudder and both Martha and the Doctor were thrown to the ground. The rotor began to move, very slowly creaking upward, lit from within with a light that was tinged with red. The shaking worsened as it reached the apex, and as it started to move back down the TARDIS began to dematerialize, but the sound was hollow and deep, punctuated by cracks and pops as though firecrackers were being ignited within the walls.

"What are you doing?!" Martha yelled, struggling to regain her feet.

"I'm not doing anything!"

"Then why are we moving?!"

The Doctor finally made it to the console, only barely managing to hold on as he grappled with the controls. "There's a high-density centrosystemic stream being channelled directly into the controls creating an asymmetrical shift in the psililium crystals and shunting us into an ultrahyperbolic dimension."

Martha glared at him. "Do all Time Lords major in warp speed jibberish?"

"I'll explain later. Come here." He reached out his hand to help her when another shockwave sent her falling into him. Martha held onto his jacket until she could steady herself then shifted her grip to the console. "When I tell you to ... what's your name?"

"Martha."

"When I tell you to, Martha, flip these switches."

"All of them?"

"Yes." The Doctor moved as quickly as he could to the other side, pushing buttons, checking readouts, and moving levers as he went. "If I can access the same frequency, find the source, I might be able to break us away." A booming noise nearly knocked them to the floor again as the rotor began to move faster, the creaks and groans growing louder as the light inside darkened to a dusky plum. "Those switches, all at once, now!"

Martha flipped them with her thumbs and for a moment the rocking and rolling motion began to diminish. The Doctor looked up at her and smiled just as another wave of turbulence threw them both to the ground again.

"Who would have the power to take control of the TARDIS?" Martha asked, pulling herself up to the console.

"I don't know. But whoever it is, they're going to tear us apart. Do you see that lever just to your left?"

Martha slightly shifted to the side and pointed. "This one?"

"Yes. Keep it pulled down, as far as it can go." He stared at the display, trying to make sense of the readings. "We're being pulled out of the Vortex. Someone's trying to move us out of normal time and space."

"What's outside time and space?"

The Doctor continued to frantically work the controls. "They're trying to trap us in a negative hyperlite spectral array. I can't seem to..."

Once more they were flung to the floor. The TARDIS seemed to stretch and contract, a loud roar reverberating through the hull, and in the next instant deathly silence as Martha and the Doctor were plunged into darkness. The TARDIS had stopped.

  


Martha didn't move for a few seconds. She wasn't hurt; other than a few bruises she had come through the last few minutes unscathed. If this Time Lord was anything like the Doctor she imagined he was okay too.

But the TARDIS was another story. She'd never heard it be so quiet inside, almost a deathly silence, save for her and the Time Lord's breathing. The darkness was unsettling. There was always a warmth to the TARDIS, a kind of welcoming quality, but now it felt cold, as if she were unconscious.

She propped herself on her elbows and blinked a few times, trying to adjust her eyes, and realized she could now see a faint glow, slowly growing stronger. _Where there's life there's hope_ , she thought as she pushed herself to her feet.

"Are you all right?" the Doctor asked, almost making Martha jump. He was much closer than she expected and she took a step back.

"Yeah. And you?"

The Doctor moved around the console, trying to get something to work. "The TARDIS has powered down. It's going to take a few hours before she's restored herself."

Martha slowly felt her way down the ramp. "So no permanent damage."

"No, but we are stuck here for a while."

"And we have no idea where 'here' is."

"Well," he replied striding toward the door, "there is one way to find out."

"What if they brought you here to kill you."

"Why would someone want to kill me?"

"You're going around impersonating another Time Lord; who knows what else you've done."

"I'm not impersonating..." the Doctor stopped, exasperated. "Are you coming?"

Martha wished she could see his eyes better in the gloom. Wild horses wouldn't stop her from going through that door; whoever or _what_ ever was out there quite likely held the key to getting her back home, regardless of why they had kidnapped a Time Lord. But assuming there were some constants across his species, she wanted to look into his eyes and gauge his emotions. She'd always thought of it as a small routine, looking in the Doctor's eyes to get a sense of what he expected to happen. Only now did she realize it had become a kind of crutch for her, something that made the numerous leaps into the unknown somewhat less tense and even more exciting. She didn't believe in dependencies and yet she had fallen into one and there was no time like the present to start freeing herself from it. Besides, this Time Lord was a mystery to her; there was no sure way of knowing what he was thinking.

She stepped forward. "Like I'd stay in here while you had all the fun," she said, flashing a quick smile over her shoulder before pulling open the door.

They stepped out into a large, cavernous room that seemed to stretch forever in every direction. It was as if someone had constructed a room as long and as wide as the horizon so no walls could be seen with the naked eye. The entire space was bathed in a soft light that didn't seem to emanate from anywhere. The floor seemed to be made of a kind of stone and yet their feet made no noise as they walked. The Doctor stopped and cleared his throat loudly, then took several heavy-footed steps to his left.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, clearly not expecting or even wanting a response.

Martha listened for a moment and wondered at the odd silence. "It sounds ... our voices, they sound flat."

He looked at her with a touch of respect. "That's right. No echoes." He turned around slowly, looking increasingly unsettled. "I know where we are. We're in between n-space and e-space; we're basically nowhere."

"Nowhere?"

"But this is all wrong. This is a building; there can't be anything built here. A ship could be caught here, you can pass through to get to another universe but settle here?"

"I don't understand. We're clearly somewhere. And what's n-space and e-space?"

"It would take too long to explain." Now the Doctor was getting angry. Something had taken control of his TARDIS, ripped her out of the universe and could have killed her in the process. And on top of everything else, he had to look out for this human's safety, someone who couldn't possibly understand how wrong this entire situation was. The Doctor began to walk away leaving Martha to catch up.

"Your world isn't completely foreign to me, you know," she said. "I'm not just some kid fresh off the bus."

The Doctor continued as if she hadn't spoken. "Maybe the engines are shielded, maybe this is an extraordinarily large ship, but I should still feel something."

"Listen, I've had about enough of your ignoring me." Just as Martha was about to make the Doctor stop and talk to her, a grey-haired man carrying an armful of books suddenly appeared out of thin air several yards in front of them. He wore a long black jacket that looked like it could have been a dinner jacket in a better life, with several white handkerchiefs sticking out from every pocket and button hole. His white shirt and brown breeches were both completely distressed and yet the black dress shoes that completed the outfit were polished to within an inch of their lives. Neither short nor tall, not thin or fat, apart from the style of his dress, he was the epitome of nondescript. Yet he emanated a presence that made him appear ten feet tall.

He paused in his approach, glancing at a pocket watch, then reached into the air beside him and a tall bookcase materialized out of which he selected a large leather-bound volume. He seemed to struggle a bit under the weight of his additional burden, and at that moment a long wooden table appeared in front of him, covered in books, papers and various knickknacks, and with a loud thump he dropped the books onto an already precarious stack.

"It's you!" Martha exclaimed, quickly walking over to him and clasping his hand.

The old man smiled warmly. "Hello, Martha, my dear friend. How are you?"

"Very nearly had my fillings knocked out getting here. Was that you?"

"Yes, I'm sorry about that," he replied. "Normally I would have simply sent a message but time was of the essence."

The Doctor looked from one to the other, his agitation growing. "Don't mind me," he snapped, a fake smile plastered on his face. "Should I just leave you to it then? Maybe pop out and get you both a cup of tea?"

"Don't get snotty. Librarian, this is ..."

"I'm the Doctor."

"Let's not start that again. If you were really the Doctor you'd know who this is."

"No, he's most definitely the Doctor. I'm afraid we haven't met yet."

"Has everyone gone mad around here?"

"I know it seems impossible to you, Martha, but this is the Doctor. You're just not supposed to be with him, at least not yet."

"That's what I was thinking."

"This is partly my fault. I registered her signature and the TARDIS and just assumed..." He raised his hands slightly and shrugged, then turned and looked pointedly at the Doctor. "But you're also partly to blame."

"Me?!"

"Well you know this was bound to happen, Doctor, what with you bouncing all around the universe, sticking your nose into everything that interests you from century to century. One of these days you were going to cross yourself, confuse things; it was inevitable."

"But I could have prevented it, just not taken her to Omeis on this date."

"No, no," the Librarian shook his head as he moved around the table, sitting in a tall armchair that emerged just as he sat. "This was unexpected but it was meant to happen; it's a fixed event."

"Who did you say you were?"

"I'm the Librarian."

The Doctor looked at him suspiciously. "The Librarian? You're calling yourself *the* Librarian?"

"Can we just back up a minute here," Martha interrupted, feeling more than a little annoyed and confused. "The Doctor and I met you together. In the Cyngi Epsilon sector."

"Transgryphon mating season?" the Doctor asked.

"Not a sight I care to see again, I can tell you."

"And, what, you thought you'd snatch them onto your space station just to say hello?" the Doctor asked, turning his attention to the Librarian.

"No," Martha interjected, "he came right up to us when we were heading back to the TARDIS and introduced himself.

"He just walked up to you, on the street?" the Doctor asked, incredulous.

"Which is why none of this makes sense. You saw the Doctor, you talked to him, you know what he looks like. *He* isn't the Doctor. Another Time Lord, yes, which is great by the way, but not the Doctor."

The Librarian raised a hand, almost reminiscent of a priest giving a blessing, then gestured for them both to sit down. When she looked to find a seat two chairs materialized behind them.

"I'd rather stand," the Doctor said, crossing his arms.

"Hey. Show some manners." Martha was getting fed up. _The Doctor may have his faults,_ she thought, _but he's clearly better at reading a situation than this Time Lord._

"Would you like to do the honors, Doctor?"

"No, be my guest." The Doctor sat down, skepticism and antagonism pouring from him.

The Librarian seemed to give no notice to the Doctor's attitude, merely turned calmly toward Martha and smiled.

"Time Lords have the ability to regenerate themselves, to completely restore themselves physically and mentally when they've grown old or if they're mortally wounded."

"You mean they can't die?"

"No, there are injuries and circumstances that can be deadly," the Doctor chimed in, "and we can stop ourselves from regenerating just as we can start the process."

"How does it work?"

"If I had the time and thought you had even an inkling about biogenic and molecular structures, not to mention complex DNA sequencing..."

"I'm studying to be a doctor, and I've learned quite a few things about Time Lord physiology. Try me."

"Enough!" The Librarian's voice seemed to fill the vast room. "Fighting is wasted time. Martha, I have no doubts you'd understand the process but the Doctor is right about one thing: we don't have time to go into that level of detail. The important thing is that you know it's possible."

Martha took a couple of breaths to expel some of her temper.

"Okay. Time Lords can sort of ... cheat death. But that doesn't explain why he looks completely different."

"It's a total physical regeneration. Everything about their outward appearance changes."

"Everything? How is that possible?"

"For now you'll have to go on faith. But this may help." He passed his hand over the table and selected a folder that Martha would swear hadn't been there before. "Here you can see each of the faces the Doctor has worn in the past."

"Hang on! What about my privacy?"

"I don't have time for your vanity, Doctor. The quicker she understands, the sooner you both can help me."

Martha opened the folder and found a screen inside playing a video montage on a loop of several men of all ages and builds: different bone structure, hair and eye color, completely and totally dissimilar from each other. The last two shots were of the man sitting next to her and finally the Doctor as she knew him. She turned and stared at the man she had believed to be a con man, an imposter and a thief. "All these men are you?"

"Yes."

"And at some point in your future you regenerate into the Doctor I know."

"Yes."

"That's incredible."

The Doctor shrugged and shifted his attention back to the Librarian. "Can we get on with this now?"

"But the first time I met the Librarian, if you're an earlier Doctor you should have remembered him. Come to think of it, you should have known me when we met."

The Librarian waved his hand to stop the Doctor from responding. "I know you've learned time isn't linear, Martha. I wish I could give you a thorough explanation, but for now can you find peace with that?"

Martha sat for a moment looking at the images in front of her, pictures of complete strangers and yet all were the Doctor. She stole a sideways glance at the man beside her, also the Doctor, tried to imagine him morphing into her own Doctor. _When this is all over,_ she said to herself, _I'm going to force one of these Doctors to explain a few things._ She sighed and nodded her head. "I guess so, yeah. Time can twist around on itself, form any shape, and with him that shape is one big blobby mess." She turned toward the Doctor. "I'm sorry for thinking you were a criminal."

"Thank you. Now. Librarian. Why am I here?"

"Yes, you're quite right. To get straight to the point, someone's stealing my stories."

"Stealing?"

"Erasing them, as if they were never told."

"But that's..."

"Impossible? I would have thought so too. And here I need you to focus, Doctor, focus on all the historical events you know to be true."

"All right."

"The Fourth Ivory Hall."

"What's that?"

"Concentrate, please. The Fourth Ivory Hall, originally built by..."

There was a brief pause as the Doctor pored through his mental database. "The Unicel Corporation." He spoke softly, thoughtfully, as the recollection came slowly to him as if from another reality.

"Yes, yes. Focus. The great Pegasi settlements of Rani and New Mars."

The Doctor stood and walked in a slow arc around the table. Martha watched him, could see him sorting through the great archives he stored in his mind. Even when he was obnoxious about it, she always admired the Doctor's knowledge, how it seemed so readily available to him. Now it seemed as if he was having to dig deep to remember.

He reached the opposite side and leaned on the table, looking down at its scuffed surface. "They were the basis for the formation of the Liberated Kingdoms."

"Yes!"

"Give me more."

"The frozen moons of Anetai."

"Go on."

"The five hundred year war of the Tarandi system."

"More."

"Drometh Station above Luthien. Ellesane's discovery of the Thulium mines of New Rhea. True Paradise."

The Doctor looked at the Librarian, his eyes wide with disbelief and alarm. "I know it's all real - every place, every event. But it feels like I've imagined them all."

"The catalysts of all of creation, invention and progress. Systematically being eliminated by forces unknown."

"I'm sorry," Martha hesitantly interrupted, "but I don't understand."

"My stories, they help to weave the fabric of the universe, the very structure on which all of history is built. If someone is systematically eliminating or significantly altering them..."

"It'd be catastrophic; the end of everything we know. All right, you have my attention. Tell me what you know."

The Librarian launched into a detailed account of all that he understood about the erasures, from the first time he recognized a gap in the archives through the disappearance of every one of Frierice Ellesane's discoveries and accomplishments from all known records.

"Just what she did? Not Frierice herself?"

"No. Frierice Ellesane was born, lived and died at the age of 92, but did nothing that she should have been renowned for, and no one else filled her shoes and did any of those acts themselves."

"That's odd," Martha interjected. "How could you manage to not only stop someone from carrying out a successful endeavor, but also keep the achievement itself from ever happening?"

The Librarian nodded sagely. "It is one of the mysteries I haven't been able to solve."

"But there's more," the Doctor added. "Our memories."

"That's why I needed you, Doctor. Only a Time Lord or myself would be able to keep the true series of events in our minds. For everyone else they vanish, removed entirely from their consciousness. There could perhaps be a faint trace, as if maybe they read it in a book years ago."

Martha listened as they continued to discuss the attack on the Librarian's stories, eagerly absorbing everything she could. She loved this feeling, being hyper aware of how little she knew about this vast world the Doctor lived in, yet knowing there was nowhere else she'd rather be. She caught the Doctor's eye just for a second and could see that same shimmer of excitement that she knew all too well. _Some things don't change from one regeneration to the next,_ she thought, smiling to herself. It's not that he wished bad things to happen, he just found them far more interesting than a day where everything goes right.

"Now, I have a couple of things that may be of help." The Librarian stood and slowly began walking toward the empty space behind him. "I believe I've isolated a distinctive footprint, a faint signature at each of these events, but I need your assistance to determine whether or not it's connected at all; it could be random residual from a standard time-space disturbance. If I'm right, you may be able to use it to find the source, but you'll have to be on site at the moment a deletion is happening in order to track it." A door appeared in front of him just as he reached to open it, revealing what looked like another empty room inside. "You'll also need a copy of my entire archive to help you retain the true history when your mind tries to deceive you. I've been downloading it onto a remote terminal." He continued speaking as he walked through the door, his voice growing fainter as he went.

The Doctor started to follow but Martha touched his arm to stop him. Something was off in how he was responding to the Librarian; he seemed almost antagonistic, which considering the apparent direness of the situation didn't seem right. She knew the Librarian's method of bringing them here was pretty dodgy, but she'd seen the Doctor act more civilly toward people who'd been a lot more aggressive toward them and his ability to read people always seemed above average.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Haven't you been paying attention?"

"I mean, what's wrong with you? You're almost acting as if you're suspicious of the Librarian."

"Me? I'm suspicious of everyone until I get to know them."

"No you're not."

The Doctor turned on her, his temper suddenly flaring. "You don't know me. You know someone that I may become, not me, and don't you ever forget that."

Martha blinked, a little taken aback by his quick change of mood. "Fine. What can I do to help?"

"I don't know. What can you do?"

Martha bit back the urge to punch him. "I don't know, help with the archive copy, keep an eye on the Librarian for you. Ah, before you have a chance to say it, just tell me what Rose would do."

"Who?"

"Rose."

"Don't know anyone named Rose."

Martha hesitated, unsure what to say. She was so used to Rose as this ever present figure in her life with the Doctor, she hadn't considered that he may not have met her yet. _This Doctor may not meet her at all, you idiot._

"Um, sorry," she stammered. "We, we should probably go," and she started toward the door.

"No." The sharpness in his voice brought Martha up short. With long strides he walked past her toward the door. "We won't need your help and I don't have time for hand holding or babysitting. Why don't you check on the TARDIS, see if she's completely recharged."

As Martha began to protest this abrupt dismissal, the Doctor closed the door and it disappeared into the empty space around it. She stood for a couple of moments staring at where the door had been, stepped forward and swept a hand through nothing but air.

"You've got to be kidding me!" she fumed, stalking back toward the TARDIS. "Clearly he picks up a few more people skills before we meet. Would it be that difficult to at least treat me civilly? Babysit me? Unbelievable!"

Martha stopped just outside the TARDIS and looked back toward where the Doctor and the Librarian had disappeared through the now non-existent door. She was really beginning to dislike this Doctor. He made her own look like the most humble and accommodating creature in the galaxy. The TARDIS didn't need to be checked, and even if something was wrong there wasn't anything she'd be able to do to fix it and he bloody well knew that. No, this was busy work, a 'get out from under my feet' task. She leaned against the TARDIS and closed her eyes, realized tension was building about her neck and shoulders so took two deep breaths and lightly shook out her arms. Of course, she didn't meet this Doctor under ideal circumstances. Technically she was trespassing and she thought he was a thief. Why should he trust her, or even want to know about her? And it's not as though her Doctor explained a lot even now, he was just less brusque in how he deflected the questions. She'd have to stop getting so angry at this Doctor's manner; it wouldn't do either of them any good to be fighting all the time, and it certainly wouldn't make solving this problem any easier.

She wandered an aimless circuitous path around the mostly empty space, roughly heading toward the table and its rickety pile of books. "The table of books that appear like magic, poof, abracadabra," she whispered, waving her hands in the air. It was one of her biggest frustrations with this kind of travel; it presented so many questions, so many fascinating wonders to explore, but there was never enough time to learn all the answers, to discover all the secrets. This place for a start; the Doctor clearly thought something was wrong about it, as if it shouldn't be here. And how in the world were things both in this room and not, invisible until the Librarian wanted them. And the biggest question mark of all was why didn't the Doctor trust him?

Just as she was about to sit down and look through some of the books, she noticed another table several feet away. She hadn't seen it before, although it was possible it had appeared at the same time as the bookcase, or even the table she stood beside. As she got closer she realized there was only one book on the table, propped up on a book stand. The title, perfectly centered on the cover and embossed into the leather in a fine script, read simply "Librarians." The spine cracked when Martha opened it, as if it had never been read before. She tapped her finger against the binding, flipped through and skimmed the table of contents, then headed back toward the TARDIS. Maybe she could find the answers to some of her questions herself.

  


The Doctor walked down a long passage toward an open doorway just ahead as his mind flipped through some of the possibilities of how these deletions in history could be accomplished and who would have the knowledge and skill to pull them off. But he found himself slightly unfocused, his concentration lacking, almost as if there was some obscurity clouding his mind. That was happening more these days - zoning out, losing the sharpness in his thoughts. It was unsettling and he was beginning to wonder if something in his head had been damaged when Gallifrey was destroyed. His steps slowed, for a moment seeing a ball of fire against the blackness of space in his mind's eye, then he stopped and shook his head clear before continuing forward. In this case, he argued to himself, the fuzziness in his brain was almost understandable; the entire situation was frustratingly absurd. Faced with an immense crisis to the fabric of civilization, the only resource a Librarian who was unreliable and possibly as untrustworthy as Davros, and forced to look after a stupid ape who blundered into the wrong TARDIS. Add to that the need to keep his mind compartmentalized to keep track of the real historical events versus the altered memories that wanted to crowd them out: it was enough to distract any Time Lord.

He walked into a room as crowded as the other was vast. Every wall was covered with books, from floor to ceiling not an inch of shelf space remained. There were piles of them scattered across the floor, and stuffed in the center of the room, barely fitting in the space, was a large ancient-looking punch card computer with a laptop balanced precariously on top. The Librarian stood in the midst of it all, alternately typing on the laptop's keyboard then pressing levers and buttons on the monstrous machine, causing it to chug and clack like a dying train.

"Ah, Doctor." The Librarian looked up and smiled. "The archive download is almost ready." He looked slightly past the Doctor. "Where's Martha?"

"I don't know."

"You have no cause to be angry with her," the Librarian tutted, "and she's already shown she possesses a keen intellect. Martha has a rare gift. One day her words will unite the world."

"What exactly does that mean?"

"It means," the Librarian said pointedly, "don't underestimate her, Doctor."

The room suddenly went quiet as the large computer sputtered and banged for the last time.

"Good, good, everything's here." The Librarian removed the laptop from the docking station it was attached to and handed it to the Doctor. "It should be fairly simple to use. I set up a very basic filing system to organize everything."

"Why do you call yourself *the* Librarian?" the Doctor interrupted.

"Because that's who I am. Surely you've heard of me."

"I've heard of Librarians, yes."

"Oh for goodness sake, we don't have time for games. I know you're aware of my species and that I am all that is left. Do you really want us to talk about being alone in the universe or shall we move on?"

The Doctor's eyes bored into the Librarian, bright with fury. "You have a strange way of ingratiating yourself to the only individual who can help you."

"We don't have to like each other, Doctor, and despite what you think of me we both need this crisis to be averted."

"Unless you turn out to be the cause of the problem."

The Librarian sighed and shook his head. "Always so suspicious." He tapped the laptop in the Doctor's hands. "With this you can access every story on the archive as it was meant to be told, unaltered by outside forces."

"How can you be sure?"

"It was created from a backup made through recursive systems. All checked and double checked by me." The Doctor flashed him a look that the Librarian chose to ignore. "And I installed a limitless power pack so if you have to take it out of the TARDIS it should never run out of batteries."

"Good."

"And make sure you don't connect it to the TARDIS; it must remain a stand-alone machine. Any networked devices could be compromised when history changes."

"I do understand basic temporal logic, thank you." The Doctor closed the computer and shifted it under his arm.

"Why don't you trust me, Doctor?"

"You're not telling us everything, about yourself or this emergency, but I don't get the feeling you're lying. That bothers me."

"I can assure you, I've given you all the information I know. Stopping these incursions into the timestream is vitally important; why would I put this mission in jeopardy?"

The response was a long, penetrating look.

"I would never send you or Martha into a situation without all the tools you need. I wouldn't put her in that kind of danger."

The Doctor began to poke around the books scattered on the large machine. "Not purposefully, no."

The Librarian moved around to a small table in the corner of the room and picked up a stack of note paper. "Now this footprint." He slowly walked back toward the Doctor, quickly leafing through the papers until he found the one he wanted and dropped the rest to the floor. "At first I thought something very much like your de-mat gun was the cause." He paused, deliberately, as if making a point or an accusation, and looked into the Doctor's cold eyes for a long moment before handing him the paper.

"So it did occur to you that I could be involved?" the Doctor asked. "A rogue Time Lord with nothing to lose."

"The thought did cross my mind, yes."

"Good. What made you rule me out?"

"It didn't make sense once I realized the scope of the problem."

"Not a particularly logical conclusion."

"And then I found what I think is a distinctive signature left behind after each event. It's a kind of rapid fluctuation between temporal acceleration and stasis with a trace of molecular divergence in its wake."

The Doctor examined the notes and equations on the paper the Librarian had given him. "Why can't this simply be some kind of lingering effect after a time disturbance?"

"No, no, it's too exact and it never changes."

"Have you checked yourself, your own memories?" the Doctor asked, concern mixing with the wariness. "Looked at everything written about you?"

"I'm fine, Doctor."

"Are you sure? Why are you here?"

"I live here."

"No you don't."

"You really must stop this."

"All right, but first concentrate on your life, on your own story. Does any of this - where we are, what you call home, what you call yourself - does it make sense?"

"I have spent countless hours doing nothing but checking my own personal archives. Trust me, Doctor, there is nothing false here."

"And that worries me," the Doctor replied, heading for the door.

  


Martha stepped out of the TARDIS hugging the book marked 'Librarians' tight to her chest. At first it had proven to be a challenging read; the majority of the pages seemed to be filled with parables and metaphors, and even with the reference key she'd found tucked within the spine it had taken time to get used to the unusual phrasing and allegory. She found a few books in the TARDIS that had proved more than helpful, and slowly she began piecing things together. But now Martha wondered if she'd interpreted the text correctly, because it raised more questions than it answered. Almost everything she'd read seemed to contradict what she knew about the Librarian, sometimes in very significant ways, and she wondered if the Doctor might not be right to mistrust him.

She'd just reached the long table when the Doctor and the Librarian appeared through a new invisible door, the Doctor several steps ahead and moving fast.

"Let's get a move on. It's bad enough I have to make a stop because of you, no need to compound the delay by dawdling."

Martha looked from the Doctor to the Librarian and back. "Excuse me?"

"If you hadn't wandered into the wrong TARDIS, I wouldn't have to make a detour just to drop you off."

 _He actually thinks he's going without me_ , she thought incredulously. "Like hell you are. If things are as dire as you say," she continued, turning toward the Librarian, "he's going to need help."

"Help?!"

"She's right, Doctor," the Librarian replied, "both of you are needed."

"Out of the question. I travel alone."

"Well obviously that changes some time down the road so you might as well get used to it. And no offense, mate, but you don't do your best work solo."

"You seem very bright, very clever, but you'd only slow me down."

"Doctor," the Librarian interjected," if all I needed was a Time Lord I could have appealed to any of your incarnations, past and future. I was looking for Martha as she was when traveling with you. I needed you both and you won't succeed on your own."

As the Doctor looked at Martha, uncertain what to make of this new revelation, Martha was looking at the Librarian, her eyes wide with surprise.

"You were specifically looking for me?"

"That's why I mistakenly brought the two of you instead of you with the Doctor you know. I detected you and the TARDIS and didn't bother to check if the Time Lord with you was the right Doctor."

"And that 'mistake' may very well be the one thing that saves you."

The Librarian chuckled. "And to think someone once tried to convince me that Time Lords don't have egos." He clasped Martha's hand. "Remember your greatest strength and you'll be fine."

"My strength?"

He smiled at her affectionately and began to walk away. Martha paused, tried to make sense of what he'd just said and failed. As she started to turn toward the Doctor, she remembered the book she was holding.

"Oh, Librarian, may I borrow this?"

"Yes, anything at all," he replied without looking around. "Doctor, this antagonism between you, it will not do. So work it out, the pair of you. Now you'll need my help to leave so give me a few minutes to get to my workroom before you attempt to dematerialize." Just before he disappeared through the door he turned. "Oh yes. Good luck to you both."

For a few moments the Doctor and Martha simply stood looking at everything but each other. Finally the Doctor cleared his throat. "That puts an interesting spin on things."

Martha thought she could detect a hint of pique in the Doctor's voice and had to bite back the sarcasm that wanted to spill out in retort. "I think that our immediate concern lies elsewhere."

The Doctor gave a quick nod. "I agree."

He stood with his arms crossed, a stern but thoughtful expression on his face, but made no move to leave. Martha looked at him for a moment, then started to head back toward the TARDIS when the Doctor stopped her. "Wait a minute."

"Yes?"

"I, the thing is, it's been a long time since I've traveled with anyone and I've got used to being on my own."

"So I gathered."

"But considering you're with me in the future, and assuming I don't become mentally deficient between then and now, I suppose I should be more accepting of you."

"Is that your way of apologizing?" She smiled at his tight-lipped reply. "Shall we start again?" she asked, extending her hand. "Martha Jones."

"The Doctor."

"Nice to meet you, Doctor."


	2. Chapter 2

Martha closed the TARDIS door and followed the Doctor as he headed for the console. Usually right before leaving for yet another new and unknown, possibly dangerous destination, she had a burst of energy and excitement, a slight touch of adrenaline. The rush was like getting high and there were times when she wondered if the withdrawal would be just as hard.

But this time was different. It felt strange to be here with him, the Doctor who wasn't her Doctor. On the one hand he couldn't help but feel somewhat familiar, just as humans must share some commonality that made them feel familiar to the Doctor. But heading off with her Doctor for the first time felt natural; she'd spent a day on the moon chasing down and running from aliens, fighting to save everyone in the hospital and half the planet. This time it was like flying off with a stranger, one whom continually insulted her and who she'd spent most of the day arguing with. There was nothing natural about being here.

And possibly worst of all, she almost felt as though she was here under false pretenses. She wasn't sure what to make of what she'd been reading, but if even half of it was accurate then the Librarian wasn't acting normally and his idea that she was needed for this, that he needed her specifically, could also be flawed. It didn't mean she had any intention of heading back to Omeis and picking up where she'd left off this morning, but it made her uncomfortable thinking the Doctor had been convinced she should come with him because of faulty data.

The Doctor was fiddling with what looked like a laptop, trying to balance it on the console. "Give us a hand?"

"Sure." She put the book down and stepped over to hold the computer in place. "What is this?"

"It's a copy of all of the archives that Librarian maintains," he explained, "and I need to secure it to the console," he stepped behind her and opened one of the floor panels, "without actually connecting it to the TARDIS." He started rummaging through the contents and came up with two long strands of what looked like climbing rope and a bungee cord.

"No." Martha looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"No." He dropped the ropes and continued looking.

"Can't you just attach it to one of the console frames with your screwdriver?"

"It would get in the way of some of the controls, but..." the Doctor looked back into the storage bin and brought up a hinged piece of metal, a smile slowly growing on his face. He jumped up and crossed to the other side near the console display. "Bring that over here."

She handed the machine to him, and with a few pulses of his sonic screwdriver had fashioned a kind of rotating computer stand onto the frame that could pivot and close when necessary and lock in place when needed.

"It can't be connected to the TARDIS because..."

"Whoever's altering these events has changed the documented historical records as well, including the books and computer files on the TARDIS. As a stand-alone system created from a recursive backup it should remain clean. And," the Doctor added with a grin, "if you feel like taking a few notes, see how things are supposed to be done, be my guest."

"You're even obnoxious to yourself," Martha shook her head in disbelief. "So this is an actual laptop."

"Near enough to one." The Doctor turned back to the TARDIS's display.

Martha glanced at the book about Librarians, looked back at the Doctor, and sighed. She couldn't let him leave without expressing her reservations. "Before we get started, you need to know that I think the Librarian may be confused when he said he needed me specifically."

"Why do you think that?" he asked, not looking up.

"Let's just say you may not be far off in thinking something's wrong with him." She thought she saw a hint of suspicion begin to creep into his eyes, so she rushed to continue. "But that isn't to say that you won't still need my help."

The Doctor turned his full attention to Martha, his eyes piercing her like a dagger. He didn't know what to make of this human. Clearly very bright, determined, strong, and despite their initial misunderstanding he did appreciate how protective she was of the TARDIS. But he didn't know whether it was good or bad that her temper and stubbornness were a match for his. And although she must know it might push him toward taking her back to her own Doctor, she still wanted him to know that she believed his doubts about the Librarian had merit.

It intrigued him that the Librarian thought so highly of her. While it was true he believed whoever was responsible for altering these timelines had also done something to the Librarian's own story as well, he was completely certain that his opinions and knowledge of Martha were genuine and true. He'd said 'her words will unite the world' and the Doctor wanted to know more, wanted to see this gift for himself.

Martha felt like she was being studied from the inside out. She stood almost squared off against him, ready for a fight. But in the end she knew she didn't have any control over the situation. If the Doctor decided to go to Omeis and kick her out there was little she could do about it. Hell, she wouldn't even know that's what he was doing until they got there.

Finally he returned his attention to the controls, apparently having reached a decision.

"Regardles of what the Librarian said, we don't really know what we're up against and an extra pair of hands could come in" the Doctor smiled, waving his hands in the air "handy."

Happy with his own joke, the Doctor's mood seemed to lift and he carried on with the preparations. Martha smiled, but hesitantly. She still wasn't convinced when the door opened she wouldn't find herself on a vacant street looking at an identical TARDIS from her present and his future. She was used to not being fully trusted or respected. But she still remembered how much it hurt when the Doctor had abruptly returned her home after she thought they'd become a good team. And it surprised her to realize it might sting just as much, if not more, to be summarily dismissed less than a day after meeting this Doctor. That would be unpleasant, and something she didn't want to experience.

Despite her unease, the Doctor seemed calm, at peace as much as he could be with his choice and the situation. "That unit also contains a list of all the erasures the Librarian is aware of," he continued, "from the first to the last. We also have what he believes could be a distinctive signature present at each of these events, a kind of temporal fluctuation. For it to be of use to us, though, we'll have to be present at the moment of deletion, preferably just before."

"So we can track it?"

"Yes, pick it up at the moment it occurs and possibly trace it back to the source. Getting there just after would be all right, but not as effective."

"Whoever's doing this, they'd have to be nearby? Like on a ship or a space station or something?"

"A ship can't generate that kind of power, but a space station," he turned and gave her a small smile, "a satellite – absolutely. But it doesn't have to be close. My guess is they're directing hits on multiple points along a timeline from one central location, which could be anywhere."

Martha moved closer so she could get a better view of the Doctor as he programmed the TARDIS and operated the controls. She enjoyed how natural and easy he made it look, even though to her human eyes the TARDIS was one of the most complicated machines she'd ever seen. Even the handful of times she'd turned any dials or pushed any buttons, she couldn't explain what she had done. It was one of things that made traveling with the Doctor exciting.

"Are we going to try and reverse everything that's been done?"

"Yes."

"So we're starting with the first incident?"

"Just the opposite. The footprint would be strongest at the last event. Once we've located their base we can travel there at a time just prior to the first incident and stop them."

"Except we both know it won't be that easy."

The doctor paused and grinned. "That's what makes it fun." Just like that Martha found herself swept up once more in the madness and thrill of being around this man, beaming back at him and loving that his smile grew even broader, transforming his face. And try as he might, the Doctor couldn't help liking this woman. "Any other questions?"

"Yeah. Are you always this tall?"

"No," the Doctor laughed, "I've been shorter. And wider, come to think of it."

"It must feel weird, having to get used to a whole new body."

"Keeps things from getting boring. Hold on!" And with a hurling jerk they set off.

  


Martha gripped the console frame for dear life; this trip was much less violent than the one that brought them here but still bumpier than the typical TARDIS turbulence. She used to believe it was normal for the trips to be so rough; if you travel through time and space you should expect to be knocked about. But the more she saw how much the Doctor had to run around to fly it, jumping from one side to another, contorting and stretching himself into bizarre shapes, she began to suspect either the Doctor wasn't the best driver or the TARDIS required more than one operator. She'd asked him once, and he feigned annoyance, made some joke about humans always focusing on how something worked instead of standing in awe that it did. But she knew it was just one more thing he wouldn't explain, one more thing he didn't think it necessary for her to know.

One night before going to sleep she'd stopped in the library and found a book about TARDISes. And when she learned the answer about how they were operated, she found herself both impressed and annoyed with the Doctor: impressed that he was doing this on his own when normally it required a crew, but annoyed because it would have taken no time for him to tell her, and it wasn't anywhere close to being over her head. But more than anything else, she loved learning about this incredible machine, so she hung on to the book; it was still in her room, something she read when things were quiet.

This Doctor was less manic in his movements, maybe the craziness was part of his future self's affectations, the broad movements something he enjoyed like little shops in lobbies. In a way she missed the madness, but there was an appeal to the controlled chaos of this Doctor's piloting, something interesting in the exuberance that didn't drift toward frenzy.

A fairly large jolt nearly loosened her hands, then everything seemed to even out, the bumps returning to acceptable norms. She could sense the Doctor relax slightly, could see they were past the worst of it. She relaxed her grip, just barely touching the frame with her fingertips, then squeezed closer to the console as the Doctor moved behind her reaching for a crank, a switch and a dial all at once. In a strange way it felt like those first remarkable days onboard the TARDIS, like recapturing that indefinable sensation of her first trips with the Doctor. Martha couldn't help smiling at being granted the honor of experiencing this for the second time.

Instead of the usual heavy thump that routinely meant they'd landed, the TARDIS seemed to just quieten but Martha could still feel the normal hum as if they were still moving.

"We haven't landed, have we?"

"No, we're just making a quick pit stop. Come on." The Doctor was quickly making his way out of the console room and Martha had to jog a little to catch up with his long strides. _Lord, he walks even faster than my Doctor_ she thought.

"What are we doing?"

"We need something to help us identify the right signature and begin tracing it. But this isn't your ordinary temporal event so we need to jerry-rig a few things together before we get there."

They walked quickly down hallways and around corners until they reached the room Martha always called the island of misfit technology: part workroom, part storage, filled with boxes of widgets and whatzits, half-completed gadgets and all manner of human contraptions and alien equipment. It was like the Doctor's personal salvage yard and outside of the console room the place she thought he always looked the most at home.

Without hesitation he headed for a box on the corner of the furthest workbench and began pulling things out by the handful.

"So tell me about yourself, Martha Jones."

The remark startled Martha a little. She wasn't expecting him to want to start a conversation. He thrust what looked like a billiard ball, but heavier and made of some strange glassy metal, into her hands.

"What's this?"

"A flux multiphaser." He abruptly turned and walked toward the shelves on the far side of the room. "Go on then. Not the full CV but the highlights."

"Well, I'm the middle child of three kids, parents are divorced. I'm the mediator of the family, always have to work out everyone else's problems. I'm studying medicine at Royal Hope Hospital but I haven't really decided on a specialization."

"Take that." Another gizmo of some kind was handed to her.

"It looks like a portable stereo."

"It's a hyperspatial sensor." The Doctor paused, giving the sensor the once over. "But it may have started off as a cassette player." He took the multiphaser from Martha, then positioned the sensor in both of her hands. He took out his sonic screwdriver and began connecting the two parts to each other. "Those can't be the highlights. You sound like someone on a job interview."

"That's kind of what this feels like."

"This isn't a test. I'm only curious."

"Well you normally learn about somebody gradually, don't you."

"I find there isn't often time for that. Put it down there." He kept his attention on his work. "I'm not big on small talk."

"No, but you learn about people fairly quickly when you're running out of air on the..." Martha stopped abruptly, mentally chastising herself for almost revealing something from the Doctor's future. The Doctor glanced at her, wondering what made her stop mid sentence. "Sorry, I don't think I should... All I'm saying is this is a little odd for me. It's like you're a stranger but not really. Part of me can't help but trust you, but another part of me thinks I'm being foolish."

"Hey, fools often have a lot of fun."

"Don't I know that," Martha laughed. "So much of this is completely familiar, even you at times, little things you do or say. But like you said, I don't know you."

"Is that why you watch everything I do?"

"No, I just like to learn. I want to understand all of this. I don't want to be the assistant."

"You want to be the doctor in charge."

"Yeah, but not _the_ Doctor," she joked.

"And do you think that's possible, for you to understand all this?"

Martha looked him straight in the eye. "If given half a chance, yes."

The Doctor finished his work, having created another apparatus mishmash with his sonic screwdriver sticking out of the side. "Well, let's see if we can't give you that chance," he replied with a grin before quickly walking out of the room. Martha hesitated, surprised at his response, then hurried to join him.

  


They stepped out onto what looked like a large industrial yard. Steel structures surrounded them built in neat rows on white cement. Instead of the heavy clang of machinery they could hear a steady vibrating hum, and there was a slight charge in the air that tickled at the fine hairs on Martha's arms.

"Draugluin, Earth's first successful terraformed planet after the Subspace Wars. This is where the last thread in the Librarian's temporal line unraveled. A water filtration plant used to be right here." He looked around him at the other buildings and pieces of machinery, thoughtful. "Curious that it was so specific."

"What do you mean?"

"Why not remove all the terraforming equipment? Why only tamper with the water?"

"Maybe they thought with no potable water the settlers would have to leave?"

"That would be short-sighted, and they don't seem the type to do things by halves."

Martha walked toward the railing that overlooked a small body of water with what appeared to be a rigging platform erected in the middle.

"Doesn't that look as if it should be an oil rig?"

"Without the rig? Yes." The Doctor continued to scan the area, walking the once occupied spot in a broad circle. "Except it wasn't for oil; it was part of the hydro system."

"Could it have served some other function?"

"Not that I know of," the Doctor said, only half paying attention.

"Was it significant in some way?"

"Significant?"

Martha was all too familiar with the Doctor's special brand of exasperation and incredulity and she rolled her eyes at the tone.

"Maybe it means something that only the water filtration equipment is missing. Maybe it was targeted for a reason."

"Well, go and figure that out then."

 _Time Lords must have all earned A-levels for dismissiveness,_ she thought. Without even trying the Doctor could make someone feel as if they had the IQ of a hamster, but Martha could never understand why he would sometimes go out of his way to make you feel even dumber. She knew in many ways it was unconscious, that he didn't realize he was doing it, but sometimes she still wanted to shake him.

She walked back toward where the Doctor was now standing, hitting his contraption and muttering under his breath. It was one of the more ridiculous looking things she'd seen the Doctor make, but she'd always loved that about what she called the Doctor's MacGyver moments. They were absurd and comical but the work of absolute genius. Only this one didn't seem to be working.

She was about to ask what was wrong when she was nearly overcome by a strong wave of vertigo and nausea, her head howling with pain. Her skin felt almost porous, as if she could feel the air from inside her body, and she had the horrible sensation of being pulled out of herself. Everything around her seemed to shift in and out of existence.

She looked up and all the structures and machinery appeared to be shattering, the fragments falling silently until they vanished in thin air. Martha found herself biting back an intense urge to scream.

Through the haze in her mind she heard "TARDIS!" The Doctor. The next second he had a firm hold of her hand and they were running, running through a viscous cloud of unreality, fighting against the pull to be thrown out of time. If not for the Doctor, Martha thought she would just disappear, fly away into nothingness. It was as if they anchored each other to the now, but if they didn't get out of here soon there would be no more now.

Just as they reached the TARDIS Martha's lungs seized from lack of air. She tried to draw in a breath and felt as if she was suffocating, whatever the air had become burning a path down her throat. Her eyes began to sting and she gripped the Doctor's hand tighter, suddenly fearful she would lose him as their surroundings continued to grow ever darker, the atmosphere becoming denser, filling with particulates.

The Doctor pushed the door open and ushered her inside. As he closed them off from the now poisonous planet, they stood for a moment just inside the door, gulping in air.

"Are you all right?" he asked, looking at her carefully.

"I think so," she coughed, leaning her head back against the wall. She started to reach into her pocket for a tissue and realized she was still holding the Doctor's hand. For a moment he seemed equally unaware, and then he looked at her with such intensity she felt as if every part of her was laid bare in his eyes. She blinked to break the moment then slowly pulled her hand free.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "The Librarian got it very wrong," he remarked, heading for the console. "This is like nothing I've ever seen."

"Doctor," Martha began, rubbing her temple, "everything that just happened, it's starting to feel like it was only a dream. I almost don't really believe I was just there. If my throat wasn't still raw I don't think I would believe it."

"Yeah, it's happening to me too. And very soon, if we don't concentrate, we'll forget Draugluin even existed."

"But how ..."

"It's time erasing itself, but in an extremely narrow, targeted way, which should be impossible." He sent the TARDIS into space above the planet as he continued to fiddle with his device. "It's very important that you try and hold on to your memory of what just happened. You might have noticed something I missed. Write it down if you have to; use the Librarian's computer."

Martha moved over to the terminal which housed the special archive and pulled up a text box. "Were you able to get anything useful before all hell broke loose?" she asked as she typed.

"Nothing I wouldn't expect to see. There's no technology, no pulse of energy or kinetic beam, nothing that could have directed or caused the disturbance." The Doctor's frustration was rising. They had been right in the middle of it, they should have been able to collect something meaningful, something that would point them in the right direction. But as he pored over the data all he found were more questions and no answers.

It was astonishing to Martha how hard it was for her to document something that had literally just happened moments ago. The cognitive dissonance made her head hurt even more. The Doctor was right: if she didn't write it down there was no way she'd be able to hold onto it. Suddenly it occurred to her that she should stop trying to fight her brain's insistence that what happened wasn't real. Think about it as if it was a dream, a dream she wanted to remember. Without having to fight against her own thoughts as much, her memories were slightly easier to retain.

She documented everything that happened - what she'd seen, heard and even smelled; how she'd felt before, during and after the event – only half listening to the Doctor's mumbled irritation. The few words she caught were completely foreign to her, and she knew there wasn't time to give her a master class on temporal phenomena. Choosing to leave him alone with his thoughts, she decided to look up Draugluin in the archive, curious to learn about the place that had just been wiped out of existence. There might also be some details about the planet that might prove useful. But every search, no matter how she worded it, came up empty.

"Doctor, you said Draugluin was Earth's first successful terraformed planet after the what?"

"It wasn't the first ..." The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut. "No, no it was. It was the first after the Subspace Wars." The Doctor ran through the data sequence again. "There's nothing useful or even extraordinarily unique here. I don't know how the Librarian could have gotten it so wrong."

"That's not all he got wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"Look." She pointed at the screen. "The archive. It has no mention of Draugluin. According to this the first terraformed world that was a success after the Subspace Wars was..."

"Carunn II," the Doctor finished.

"That's what this says."

The Doctor rushed in front of the terminal, nearly pushing Martha out of the way. "This is an isolated system. How was it affected?" He pushed away from the computer, his eyes focused somewhere on the floor. "And why Carunn II? Draugluin is much more viable."

He moved back to the Librarian's archive and entered a search key, then turned away again clearly disgusted at the results. Slowly, the Doctor began to walk around the console, his head bent as he puzzled through the information.

"What do we know? One. Someone has managed to harness and master such tremendous power they can manipulate the course of history in a highly specific manner, not unlike pointing a gun at a target a million miles away and having perfect aim. Two. They can alter any kind of database, even the recursive system set up by the Librarian. Three. They've been altering his information, and possibly even his memories, for some time now. Which all points to someone of the same species as the Librarian but from what I know he's the only one left." The Doctor's voice trailed off, as if he was trying to remember something just beyond his reach.

Martha had been standing to the side, listening to him think through the problem. She replayed everything he had said, thought through what the Librarian had told them, what she had seen. Then something clicked in her head. It might be completely off-base but maybe it would trigger something in the Doctor's mind.

"Doctor, I think maybe we're starting in the wrong place."

Martha's voice seemed to wake the Doctor from his reverie.

"And what you just wrote hasn't changed at all," the Doctor interrupted, continuing to pace slowly. "That implies any new additions may remain untouched, which could be helpful. But it also means we have no reliable source of information to keep us on the right track."

"Listen, I don't think we're going to find them this way."

"Nothing we have will help us find the source. Nothing explains the precision of the target, the spike of unusual levels of isotopic solaria when the anomaly started. We're missing key pieces of information."

Martha moved forward, blocking the Doctor's path.

"Martha, I don't have time."

"Then make time." She could practically feel the Doctor withdrawing, moving from general dismissiveness to outright ignoring. She took a breath and started again. "Please, just hear me out."

The Doctor let out an exasperated sigh, crossed his arms and looked at her pointedly.

"Maybe this guy's acting sort of like the Terminator."

"What?"

"The Terminator. Movie from the 80s? Starred Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

"Arnie. Most successful alien ever to move to your little world."

"Are you kidding me?"

"That he's not human? With a head like that I'm surprised more people didn't suss him out."

Martha realized she was gaping and shook her head slightly. "Anyway, the point is the machines decided to defeat their enemy by going back in time and killing the woman who would eventually give birth to him. Take him out before he's even born. Couldn't that be what's happening here? They're getting rid of a whole string of events, people, technology; but couldn't they be starting at the source?"

"Remove key targets whose absence sets in motion actions that years later results in the elimination of something of major importance which was the real target all along."

"The, um, mechanics of the ... infinite temporal flux."

"That's right. How do you ... no, I get it, you're smart." He flashed her a quirk of a smile.

"They wouldn't have to be nearby at all."

"They wouldn't even have to be in the same timestream, and that would explain the anomalous readings! Martha Jones, you're fantastic!" The Doctor beamed, thrilled at finally having the first critical piece of the puzzle solved. Martha felt herself flush from pride and a little delight at his exuberant praise.

"The problem is," the Doctor continued, "that complicates things to an enormous degree."

"How could someone figure all of that out, know who or what to get rid of in the past to make such big changes in the future?"

"With enough time, the right resources, but this is too accurate, too precise. They'd have to have written the stories to begin with."

"No, I don't believe that."

"It's the only explanation."

"He wouldn't do this."

"Another Librarian might."

"But there aren't any others."

"But what if this idea that there is only one surviving Librarian is just a more deeply embedded revision? What if we've all been fed wrong information by whoever's responsible for all this? The fact that he calls himself *the* Librarian: it would be like me calling myself *the* Time Lord. The Librarians were a race of humanoids; they had names."

"But when we met him, he said he was 'the Librarian' and the Doctor didn't seem to think it unusual."

"Maybe he thought it was merely a conceit and not worth mentioning."

"But the book details how his race died out."

"What book?"

"When you and the Librarian disappeared through that invisible door. I felt at a bit of a loose end and I was curious about him and why you didn't trust him. There was this book on a stand, a kind of biography or something so I started reading it."

"It was just out on a stand?"

"Yes." Martha walked over and picked the book up from behind the seat and brought it over to the Doctor. "I specifically remember the wording. It was kind of pompous and much more direct than the rest of the text." She flipped through to the right page and showed him, reading it out in an officious voice. "'Leaving only one guardian over the historical record of the universe.'"

"This could be how the Librarian's own memories have been altered," the Doctor replied, taking the book and absently turning the pages. "The only thing strong enough to change even a Time Lord's perception of reality would be a Librarian. They're a powerful and ancient race spread throughout time and space, existing outside the spacial dimensions familiar to you. They shape events through their writing, each one responsible for different histories and civilizations."

"You make them sound like God."

"There are some worlds that worship them as such. They rival the Time Lords in mental acumen; their knowledge of interspatial dynamics is exceptional. In many ways we balanced each other, flip sides of the same coin. But without the Time Lords there aren't many things in any universe that can keep them in check other than themselves." He passed the book back to Martha.

"But if you knew he shouldn't be called *the* Librarian, why didn't you say something?"

"Because I knew something was going on and I couldn't be sure he wasn't behind it."

"What makes you certain he's not?"

"What makes you?"

Martha thought about it for a moment. There was nothing logical about her opinion, but her gut told her that he couldn't do these kinds of terrible things. "I can't give you a reasoned argument, but I just know he's inherently good. It wouldn't be in his nature to cause this kind of suffering."

The Doctor smiled softly. "No, I don't think it would be either. Sometimes all we have to go on is our instinct, but I don't think we're wrong. Tell me, when you first met this Librarian, how did future me react?"

"The Doctor seemed really pleased, as if it was someone he'd heard about for years but never thought he'd meet. After I finally got them to explain who he was - which they didn't really, not like you did just now – we talked for a while. He seemed really sweet, kind of grandfatherly. I remember when he left he made a point of saying he was very pleased to have met me, which I thought was really nice. The Doctor acted almost like he'd met an icon or something."

"But he didn't find any of that unusual?"

"Not that he said. He seemed fine, not even that little look both of you get where it's clear you're thinking one thing even though you're saying another."

"What little look?"

"Please, you are not as subtle as you think."

The Doctor looked slightly offended, and Martha laughed. She was getting used to this Doctor's quirks and mannerisms, and in many ways found herself more comfortable with him. He might have less patience and be quicker to anger but she didn't feel that he was always holding something back from her. It was all out there and she appreciated that.

"I can tell you right now that that's extremely unusual, I'd even say unheard of. A Librarian shouldn't be walking along the street, and he shouldn't be living in the Gateway."

"The Gateway?"

"That's where we were, or at least another structure in the same location. It's a kind of staging area between N-Space and E-Space. N-Space is the universe as you know it. E-Space is smaller and sits alongside."

"Would you call that a parallel universe?"

"More of an oblique universe," the Doctor explained, angling his hands about 45 degrees from each other. "The Gateway is what you pass through when you travel from one universe to the other. And the Librarian most definitely shouldn't be there."

Martha knew that sometimes she had to accept the things she was learning without fully understanding them, take them as given, because the explanation would blow her mind even more than the new information. Plus, there often just wasn't the time; this wasn't Universe U. and the Doctor wasn't technically her professor. The fact that he didn't need any coaxing to explain it this time was a huge plus in her mind. So she gave herself a moment to somewhat process the idea of two distinct universes and added yet another item to her "study later" list.

"Right, so if the Librarian's own history is being rewritten..."

"Not so much rewritten as masked. It'd be impossible to completely erase aspects of the Librarian's own life; even just altering his perception of it would take an impressive amount of power."

"Would even another Librarian have that much power?"

"In the past I would have said no. My people would have served as a big deterrent to anyone who wanted to start amassing this kind of strength, and no one would've been able to deceive all of us collectively. But now, without that counterbalance, anything's possible. My fear is they're not only altering the Web of Time. They may be trying to construct a new one." The Doctor sat down heavily onto the seat. There were days when he felt he was the only one out there fighting for good, trying to do what's right. And in this case, he was the only one able to actually do something. Martha thought he seemed to visually deflate a little under the weight of the responsibility. She leaned a hip against the console trying to think of something that would either be helpful or could lift the Doctor's spirits, but came up empty.

"Do we start at square one? Go back to the first target?"

"I believe that would be our friend the Librarian. But going back to the beginning wouldn't work. We need to find out where they are."

"Not to throw another spanner into the works, but if the Librarian's being manipulated wouldn't that mean that the one we're after probably already knows that someone's looking for him?"

"Not necessarily. I have a feeling this other Librarian is a little too cocky. They're shooting for bigger and bigger game each time and have been getting away with it for so long I wouldn't be surprised if they don't think anyone can get to them."

"Should we go over everything we know again?" Martha asked. "Maybe something will look different this time."

They spent the next half hour talking, comparing notes, thinking about the significance a difference in the real history versus the revised story might mean. At some point they had switched places, Martha now sitting down and the Doctor walking around the console, as they reviewed every piece of information. Martha and her Doctor had talked before, worked together to solve problems, but she'd never felt like such a partner, that her input was valued as much as this Doctor seemed to appreciate it. In such a short period of time he'd gone from not finding any use to her being there to considering her an important part of the equation. It made Martha even more determined, made her work doubly hard.

"There's just one thing I keep coming back to," Martha began, "and you're not going to want to hear about it."

"Go on. At least it might be good for a laugh."

Martha suspected he wasn't joking, but plowed ahead anyway. "The water on Draugluin."

"Not this again."

"Or more specifically, having the water filtration systems removed before any of the other terraforming equipment. That and the fact the planet was never settled, that people decided to go elsewhere even though Draugluin was the best option. It doesn't make sense. If something doesn't make sense we probably don't have the complete picture, and maybe we'll discover something important while filling in the missing information."

"What information do you expect to uncover, Martha?" the Doctor asked, clearly exasperated. He walked over to the display and began pulling up the planet's environmental data. "Without the hydro system in place, the water is comprised of..." The Doctor abruptly stopped speaking, concentrating on the data.

"Comprised of what?"

"It's not really water at all," he said, completely surprised by what he was seeing, "it's more like liquid infenitron, which is about as far from water as you can get. There's no way anyone from Earth would try and terraform this world. I don't think you could transform it; it's totally inhospitable."

"That would explain why no one ever tried to settle there."

"But that wouldn't happen as the result of a deviation from the known timeline or from any temporal anomaly." The Doctor excitedly began roaming around the console working the controls as if he was preparing to dematerialize. "And there is no force that can alter the baseline composition of a planet at the time of formation."

The TARDIS began to move and Martha quickly grabbed the closest thing she could get her hands on. "Where are we going?"

"Into the abyss," he replied, dramatically. They stopped and the Doctor began manipulating the switches and dials even more frantically. "Yes!" he shouted, looking at the display. "That's what I'm looking for."

Martha quickly moved beside him to have a look.

"What's that?"

"It's a fluid cascade module masked by a psionic transmission. Very advanced and somewhat altered, probably to speed up the process. *That* is what transformed the water on this planet into the muck it is now. *That* is technology very few people could even get their hands on let alone know how to operate."

"Would one of those people be a Librarian?"

"Absolutely, he declared, triumphantly. He began uploading all the data he could from the module, his eyes flickering across the monitor, taking it all in. "At the very least now we know what they can't alter through revision they're willing and able to manipulate through other means."

"I suppose we wouldn't be so lucky as to find some of the same elements you recorded as a byproduct of the event itself."

"Hang on a minute." The Doctor sent the TARDIS back into orbit around the planet as he spoke. "I don't see any commonalities at first glance but I'm adding it to the data we collected earlier, let the TARDIS dig through it."

As frustrated as the Doctor was, he was also a bit surprised at how much nicer it was to share that frustration with someone, especially someone who seemed to relish examining data and working their way to understanding as much as he did. He was learning to value Martha's insights, and her skill in laying out information. He imagined this was one of her natural gifts, something that must serve her well at the hospital, and traveling with his next regeneration had likely honed it. Martha had a special quality, one he wasn't sure even now if he fully appreciated. He wanted to learn more about her, uncover the facets of her personality, her sense of humor, and delve into her idiosyncrasies. He did wonder why she seemed so guarded toward him. He suspected it was partly due to their confrontational introduction to each other, but he sensed there was more to it than that and had to fight himself not to go hunting for the answer.

Martha was both relieved and proud that her hunch that the water was somehow significant had paid off. It may not immediately, if ever, get them any closer to finding the person responsible for all this, but it did establish another fact, fill in another part to the puzzle, and the more information they had the better. Resolving unanswered questions always helped move you closer to the final solution, if for no other reason than helping narrow down the possibilities and eliminating dead ends. Emboldened by this success, she decided to press forward with another issue that was bothering her.

"This footprint we were looking for."

"Except it's not; it's just a natural byproduct left behind after the fluctuation."

"Why did the Librarian think it could be a signature?"

"He thought it was too precise with no variability to be merely a temporal residue."

"Like a Librarian's mark."

"Yeah but..." The Doctor paused, his eyes growing increasingly wider. "You're brilliant!" the Doctor exclaimed, turning back toward the console, his face transformed by a broad smile. Martha had no idea what he was so excited about, but she couldn't help smiling back, his energy sweeping her up in its infectious wake.

"Mind letting me in on it?"

"A Librarian's mark!" Laughter burst from him, uncontrolled and unabashed. "The unique stamp that denotes which Librarian was responsible for a specific series of events. I was so focused on finding similarities in the deletions themselves I completely overlooked the one thing that could identify the Librarian we're looking for. How do *you* know about that?"

Martha just pointed to the book, making the Doctor laugh even harder. "But if we can't match a mark to a specific name..."

"We don't have to. This residual fluctuation is partly just junk left behind after the timeline's been altered. But it also masks solarian spikes, which are a key component in any Librarian's mark. They found a way to almost break up the mark, bury some of it under temporal effluence, make the rest look like anomalous readings or random particles. If I combine the fact we found crystalized strontite deposits on the fluid cascade module, the frequency of the psionic transmission that was concealing it, and filter out the molecular divergence. That's it!"

Martha saw an odd combination of Greek letters, geometric shapes and algebra on the screen that in many ways looked like a squat, slightly warped double helix. "Is that the mark?"

"Not bad, huh?"

"I'll be really impressed if you tell me how this helps us find them."

"Is that a challenge?"

"I just don't believe in stroking anything when we're only halfway there."

The Doctor gave her a quick double take before continuing. "Then you're going to love this." He set out on another circuit around the console, hands flying from lever to button to toggle switch. "If we take the inverse of that mark, translate it into an alphanumeric code, and broadcast a pulse with that data, wherever the signal bounces back from will be where our mysterious Librarian has set up shop." Martha had started to find a hand hold when he got back to her side. "No, we're not going anywhere just yet." His fingers raced on the keyboard and then he stood up with his arms crossed and a smug expression on his face.

Martha moved in closer to get a better view of what looked like gibberish on the screen. "Is that their location?" She looked at him, wide-eyed with wonder.

He quickly glanced at the screen then looked back at Martha like the cat who ate the canary. "Yup. What do you say to..." The Doctor's self-satisfied, gleeful expression disappeared in an instant and he turned back toward the screen, an unsettling look on his face.

"What's wrong? What does that say?"

"Give me a minute." He typed frantically, scanned the screen, moved to the different sides of the console and made adjustments, came back around to the display and in seeing what was there fell back a little.

"Doctor, tell me. What's wrong?"

"They're within the vortex, they're in a void in time."

"That doesn't sound very good."

"It should be impossible. There are very few things that can travel through the vortex and live, but create a void within the vortex, actually live inside it... That's beyond anything I've ever seen before."

"Are you sure the bounce came from within the vortex?"

"Triple checked."

There were so many questions Martha wanted to ask but she could see the Doctor's mind working on overdrive. He slowly walked around the controls, arms crossed tightly against his chest, thinking beyond the impossible to come up with a plausible theory. Finally he stopped across from her and leaned on the console, looking down as he sorted through his thoughts.

"We'll have to generate a kind of combination wormhole and time corridor, a hybrid hyperbolic drive. In theory it should be possible but I've never heard of it being done before. The calculations have to be 100% accurate. We only get one shot at this; there are no second goes. One incorrect coordinate, one false algorithm." The Doctor paused, trying to shake the weight of the situation from his shoulders. "This is the kind of thing a couple of Time Lords would work through together."

Martha would swear she could literally see the lightbulb go off over his head. His entire demeanor changed and he graced her with another of his effusive smiles.

"I know the guy." The Doctor began laying in the coordinates and Martha could feel his energy rising. "Henethil Coll. Former Time Agent, nanotechnology ethicist and a genius, one of the greatest minds in his time on temporal theory."

"And you're going to tell him what's going on?" Martha asked, a little surprised.

"I'm going to posit a hypothetical and intriguing scenario and bet him that even he can't figure it out."

"Ah, the good old-fashioned male ego."

"Don't knock ego. Ego can build mountains. Oh, one more thing. Heneth knows me as Jasper."

"Jasper?"

"And he's much more helpful if he thinks he's the smartest alien in the room so shtum on the Time Lord business."

"Right." Martha couldn't stifle all of a giggle.

"What's so funny?"

"You sure I won't need a full dossier or something?"

The TARDIS lurched to a stop. "Just follow my lead."

Martha tapped the side of her nose and headed down the ramp.


	3. Chapter 3

Henethil Coll turned out to have an extraordinarily boyish face, stood no more than five feet tall and had the biggest eyes Martha had ever seen on a human. He was also as cheesy a flirt as she had ever known; every clichéd pick-up line and proposition in the book must have passed his lips before she and the Doctor finally left. In its own ridiculous way it could have been almost charming except he had a preference for blue language that, while somewhat amusing coming from someone who looked to be about ten, quite quickly lost any appeal it might have had.

It was clear from the beginning that his relationship with the Doctor was based more on intellectual stimulation than actual friendship. Martha would go so far as to say they didn't like each other very much. She got the distinct impression if she hadn't been there Heneth would have offered not even the basic courtesies to the Doctor, and there might have been more insults thrown his way. But they did seem to harbor a healthy respect for the other, and once the challenge was made that antagonism turned into a cerebral deathmatch and both he and the Doctor loved every minute of it.

Martha was fascinated watching the Doctor mentally spar with someone. He expertly walked the fine line of demonstrating intelligence while never outwitting his host, was masterful at not revealing too much of his hand. When he needed Heneth to freely theorize or do a braindump of all the equations that came to him off the top of his head, the Doctor deliberately dumbed down; when he needed his own figures and theorems rigorously scrutinized, he turned more confrontational and disdainful pushing Heneth to be even more critical, thereby arriving at even more precise calculations. It was a clever manipulation, and when they left – the business card Heneth insisted Martha take still in her hand - the Doctor was clearly pleased with himself. He was as confident as he could be about the relevant principles, the complex programming and navigational computations that would have to be made, as well as the adjustments and retrofits the TARDIS needed in order to withstand the trip.

What was causing him the most consternation was Martha. He looked at her, at the beautiful brilliance in her eyes. Clever, kind and funny; she had already given him so much, had opened his heart where once he thought it permanently closed. On the one hand he would clearly need help if he had any hope of succeeding. But the idea of bringing Martha into the void, a place he had no real idea how he would escape from, was unthinkable.

For one brief, terrible moment he considered just letting everything go; let the cards fall where they may, let the universe unfold into whatever unknowable form this Librarian wanted it to take. But the end result would be the same as if he brought her back home and he went into the void alone and failed. Eventually some thread of time would snap and catch Martha in its wake. He wouldn't be saving her, just delaying the injury. But bringing her with him, as much as he would need the help, still felt selfish and self-serving. He just wasn't ready to say goodbye.

Still undecided what to do, it was only when he opened the TARDIS door did he realize Martha had stopped a few feet behind him. The gentleness in her eyes had been replaced with steely resolve.

"Don't even think about it, Doctor."

"I have a lot of work to do so come on."

"Not until we get one thing cleared up right now."

"And what is that?"

"You're thinking of leaving me behind, of going into the void by yourself."

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. He suspected she'd know if he was lying; her ability to read him was a little unnerving but couldn't be denied. And if he was going to drop her off, keeping up the illusion until the moment he left without her was crucial.

"It's a kind thought, wanting to protect me is very sweet. But this goes beyond me and you know it. You have to fix these wounds in the timestream for the sake of everyone in this universe and you can't do it by yourself. It'd be foolish to try and I'm not going to let you."

"Martha, can we talk about this inside?"

She walked toward him. "There's nothing to talk about. Just know that I'm going with you, accept it, deal with it, stop agonizing about it." Just before going through door she turned back and looked him straight in the eye. "And I won't be stepping outside the TARDIS before you until we've finished the job so no tricks."

The Doctor stared at her back as she walked inside, not able to help the small smile that prickled at the corners of his mouth. He decided not to tell her he could always dematerialize without her; best save that for when she was less inclined to hit him.

  


After grabbing something quick to eat, they'd been working for a couple of hours; the Doctor first programming the TARDIS and reconfiguring the necessary controls, then concocting some kind of device he'd been annoyingly secretive about, now making the necessary changes to the TARDIS's systems and structure so she would have the best chance to endure the rigors of this trip. Martha had helped whenever she could with whatever the Doctor needed. All the while she'd continued reading the Librarian's book, hoping she might uncover some new information that would help improve their chances.

She sat on the floor, the Librarian's book open in her lap, surrounded by various tools, cogs and circuitry. When the Doctor needed something, she handed it to him, sometimes held things while he worked on them. But she knew he could be doing all of this on his own and she could offer no substantive help. She hated feeling useless, and until she'd met the Doctor, it was a rare occurrence. But lately she'd been letting her Doctor undermine her confidence, and now with so much time having a less active role in the preparations, she found her mind harping on all the self-doubt, all the uncertainty. At least this Doctor was letting her play at being an assistant. Hers, more often than not, just wanted her out of his hair, and she'd heard one too many times what little direction Rose needed.

She knew this image he painted of Rose was flawed, that it was more a fiction in his mind created over the time that they'd been together. Everyone does it, downplay the negatives and inflate the positives when thinking about people they're close to, especially people who they've lost in some way. She'd done it herself: when she was missing her family all the things that annoyed and irritated her drifted into the background and all that was left was a chocolate box cover. What bothered her was his penchant to diminish her, to make her feel less intelligent, less wanted, less worthy - whether consciously or unconsciously - as one way of honoring Rose, of keeping her in this sacred place.

"Martha!"

She jumped, abruptly snapped back to the present. "Yes?"

The Doctor looked at her, could tell she'd been deeply engrossed in her own thoughts. He knew they were tired, but that didn't seem to be the problem. "The geowire. That springy, coily thing. Now."

"Sorry." She looked around her until she saw what he needed then handed it to him.

He turned his attention back to his work. "You're not still miffed that I thought about going without you are you?"

"What? No, not at all."

"Then do you want to tell me what's wrong? If you're coming, it's best that you not be distracted."

Martha could feel the heat rise in her cheeks. Sitting around lost in thought was no way to prove her worth.

"I'm sorry. I suppose I always feel like I'm in the way during times like this."

"You're just sitting there."

"No I mean, I feel useless. There's so much to do and I can't help with any of it."

"Reading more of that book could be more helpful than either of us realizes. Something in there could save our lives."

Martha nodded and tried to refocus, but there was still a part of her brain that kept haranguing her. So many trips, she'd done so much, helped him in so many ways, and he still saw her as only a temporary passenger. And even after agreeing she was part of the 'crew' it always felt more like a reluctant acceptance, not that he'd really welcomed her. It was as if there was nothing she could do to fully earn his faith and trust, his respect.

The Doctor sensed she was still ill at ease but didn't have time or the inclination at the moment to tease it out of her. "The resonating clamp. That ..."

"Nope, that one I remember," she interrupted, picking up the needed item and giving it to him. It struck her how absurd so much of this was, how her family and friends were all on Earth in a completely different time totally clueless that their lives, maybe even their very existence, could be threatened by a being they'd be hard pressed to even believe existed. "I wonder how difficult it is for people who've traveled with you to adjust to normal life," she said thoughtfully, only half conscious she was speaking out loud. "I mean once you've run from the Judoon, tracked down a Plasmavore, paid a visit to William ..." Martha whipped around to look at the Doctor, her eyes wide, immediately regretting her last words. "I'm so sorry. I should never have mentioned any of those things."

"Why?"

"Well, it's your future. Isn't that forbidden or something? Some kind of time law."

"Suit yourself. The singularity chip, right by your foot, there."

"Some things don't change then," she said half under her breath as she handed him the part.

"If you have something to say..."

"You have these annoying expectations that I should already know everything," Martha blurted out, "that I should already understand. I don't expect full explanations, just, I don't know, some acknowledgment that my lack of knowledge doesn't make me less in your eyes might be nice. Not to mention the generous re-write you've given Rose in your mind, this fantasy you have that there was no learning curve, that she emerged from the womb already knowing everything about aliens and time travel."

Martha stopped, realizing she was yelling at the Doctor for something he hadn't done, not this Doctor anyway. She could feel him looking at her but she couldn't bring herself to look back. She wished she could sink into the floor grates and disappear. "I apologize; that's not your fault."

"That's the second time you've mentioned 'Rose.' I take it I travel with her? My future, your past?"

"I am so embarrassed."

"Time won't cease to exist, Martha. You won't be breaking any kind of law, I promise. Would be a bit like spoilers I guess, but Rose is a fairly common name; I'm sure I'll meet quite a few."

Martha still wouldn't meet his gaze, not wanting to see the look in his eyes. She felt like a child, or more accurately an obstructive child throwing a tantrum when there were more important things to be done. "You don't need to hear this now."

"Maybe I do. Maybe that's one of the reasons why you're here."

She finally looked at the Doctor and was heartened not to see anger or annoyance in his eyes. "She was with you for a long time."

When Martha didn't continue the Doctor finally asked, "And I spend a great deal of time comparing the two of you?"

"I don't think you mean to, it just happens."

"A bit rude, isn't it?"

Martha huffed out a laugh and bowed her head back toward the book in her lap. "Could say that, yeah."

"I only travel with the best, Martha." She looked up at the serious tone of his voice, saw him staring intently at her. "If you're with me, you deserve to be. And you're right, I don't always explain when I should and I can be rude. But speaking only for myself, it's not because I think anyone's better than you. From what I've seen, you're brilliant."

The Doctor extended his hand and she took it, still a little embarrassed, but almost at once she began to feel less shame, less troubled. She could feel his honesty, his affection, could see the genuineness in his eyes.

"Besides," he added, giving her hand a squeeze, "I like your company." He turned back to his work, leaving Martha with much lighter thoughts. This was the Doctor. Different but still the same man, the same Time Lord. And he respected her, appreciated her for herself, no voices from the past clouding his eyes. It was a heady realization.

  


They worked in relative silence for another forty-five minutes, the Doctor quickly working through his list of tasks to prepare the TARDIS for the difficult trip ahead. He looked over at Martha, her head bent over the Librarian's book. He had no way of knowing how many hours ago her day started, but getting some rest before setting off had to be a good idea.

"You should get some sleep. There's not much left you can help me with and you should be sharp for when we get there."

"Assuming we get there in one piece," she joked.

"That too." His smile wasn't forced, just weary, as if he was tired of the constant battles. Martha found she had to force herself from going to him and holding him close. She wished there was more she could do to ease his mind.

She pushed herself up off the floor. "You need to be sharp, too."

"I'll take a break, catch a quick catnap. It's a blessing, though, not needing too much sleep to be fully rested."

"Because you can get more done?"

"Because the dreams are shorter."

Martha couldn't move for a minute, surprised at the Doctor's words and at the frank admission. Over the past few weeks she'd tried to resign herself to the fact the Doctor would never let her really see inside, would never honestly share those deeper, darker thoughts she could see at times clouding his eyes. And now, after such a short period of time, this Doctor was already starting to reveal some of those hidden spaces, unconsciously allowing her a glimpse into more personal thoughts. She imagined it was because the feelings were newer, more raw and closer to the surface and therefore harder to pack away. But it still felt like something more, like there was a trust building between them that she'd only dreamed would happen with her own Doctor.

The Doctor didn't realize he'd said anything worth noting. He looked up, surprised to see Martha still there.

"I promise I'll get some rest," he said, climbing up out of the maintenance enclosure in the floor. "Now go on. I'll see you in a couple of hours."

She nodded and smiled, hugged herself rather than the Doctor, and walked through the back doors.

The Doctor chuckled a little and shook his head. He wasn't used to having someone around trying to look after him but he thought he could get used to it. It'd been some time since he let himself think about his younger days, of everyone he'd ever traveled with. He'd erected such a barrier around himself in this regeneration, had actively sought solitude even when he was racing across time and space to put something right. He often tried to convince himself it was for the best, traveling companions brought complications he had no time for; they'd inevitably wander off and find new troubles to compound already difficult situations. Yet now that Martha was here, he could remember how much better it always was when he could not only share the burden but also the excitement, the discovery, inherent in his life. He'd forgotten how it felt to witness the universe through unjaded eyes, to experience that thrill in the vast newness of it all.

Already he could feel himself easing toward a more peaceful existence, still strained and difficult to achieve but much more within his grasp. He knew it wasn't only about having company. Just anyone wouldn't be having this kind of affect on him. No, there was something about Martha, something that drew him out of himself and opened him up to the world again if for no other reason than because she was in it.

He started to tweak the spatial drive again although it didn't need the attention. He didn't honestly have anything left to do. He'd triple-checked every equation, done countless calculations, run multiple simulations. Everything had been reconfigured, from the smallest coil to the largest transponder. What could be bolstered and reinforced had been, what could be modified and recalibrated had already been installed. All the prep work that needed to be done before attempting to locate this second Librarian had been finished, and much quicker than he'd anticipated. Technically they could make a go of it right now, if it weren't for the fact that Martha absolutely needed some sleep, and he could do with an hour or two himself. But as he often found himself doing when he was tired, he was making up busy work, reexamining circuits and running routine maintenance. Going to sleep shut down all his defenses, left him vulnerable to traitorous thoughts.

Sometimes all it took was a flicker of light out of the corner of his eye, sometimes just the utter quiet at the end of the day. Sometimes it required nothing but one unguarded moment and it would flood through him, the never ending fire, the flash brighter than the greatest sun, the instant destruction, the silence. He slipped his sonic screwdriver into his breast pocket and sat on the jump seat, running through the required maneuvers through the time vortex for the umpteenth time, then moving on to think about their adversary and all that they were destroying. If unchecked he had no doubt entire worlds, entire races, soon would be erased from history and the devastation wrought from that would be horrific, as he knew all too well.

It was the wrong train of thought to take, as far too swiftly there was a spike in his mind and all he could see were the final hours of the Time War, watching himself as if viewing a movie he'd seen hundreds of times as he followed each inevitable and irretrievable step. He sat, hands limp at his sides, replaying it backwards and forwards, awash in the all-encompassing silence and blinding repercussions. Minutes passed as he surrendered to overwhelming helplessness.

"I feel really silly but..." Martha began as she walked back into the console room but she stopped mid-sentence with one look at the Doctor. It was as if he was made of stone, and she half expected as she circled around to face him that she'd see it was in fact a very lifelike figurine sitting in his place. He looked a million miles away, stricken by something she knew instinctively she'd never be able to see. This wasn't like the times she'd discovered the Doctor deep in thought, puzzling through some problem or working out a set of tricky coordinates. Now he looked lost, as if he was trapped in another time unable to will himself free. It frightened her, but in a way she didn't think she'd ever seen him look more human and it moved her to tears.

She squeezed her eyes shut to clear them, then carefully sat beside him, taking his hand in hers. "I'm here, Doctor. I've got you."

Martha didn't know how long they sat together, the gentle whisper of the TARDIS acting like a cocoon. She resisted the urge to wipe the tears from his cheeks, but rather stilled herself completely, deepening her breathing, and trying to keep her thoughts calm and even in hopes her energy would help ease him away from the memories that bound him.

After a time, his eyes slowly shifted down to their joined hands. He seemed puzzled by them at first, as if he didn't understand how he was seeing someone else's hands with his own. Then there was an almost visible shudder as he closed his eyes and when he opened them again the haunted and distant look was gone; all that was left was intense sadness. He kept his attention on their connection, firmly holding on to her.

"How did you know?"

Martha had to swallow down the lump in her throat before she could speak. "I didn't."

"Then why did you come back?"

"It doesn't matter now."

"Please." He looked into her eyes and she could see he needed the normalcy, needed to have something to latch onto other than himself.

"Have you finished here?" She nodded quickly toward the console.

"Yes. We're all ready."

"Good," she cleared her throat, put on her best light and easy voice, "because I need your help."

"What's wrong?"

"My room, well, the room I used when I was with you ... in the future, it's not there, or rather what I think should be the room only has four huge trunks filled with little glowing aqua balls that kind of smell like," she scrunched her face up a little searching for the word, "wet dog?"

The Doctor laughed, a full round gorgeous thing that filled Martha with delight. He wiped at his eyes as he caught his breath then stood, pulling Martha to her feet. "Well, we'd best find you another room." He gave her his arm then started walking toward the door, but stopped just before going through and turned to face her. "Thank you."

The warmth and sincerity tugged at Martha's heart.

  


Martha felt more clear-headed after a few hours sleep, stronger, less emotionally drained. They'd each been fragile yesterday, everything more raw and immediate, and while she knew the Doctor's words had helped her, she wondered how much she'd been able to do for him. She'd never seen the Doctor so distraught, so brittle. But this was a younger man, she reminded herself, who didn't have as many years between himself and the loss of his entire world as did her Doctor. It only made sense that he'd still find himself overwhelmed by the thought of it. She'd wanted to suggest he shouldn't be alone last night but changed her mind, not wanting to give the wrong impression or send any mixed messages. She knew all too well how annoying that could be, even when those messages were sent unconsciously.

She put on her jacket, grabbed her book and took one more look around the room. As soon as she stepped inside she knew he'd given her his room. It wasn't in the same place, wasn't even the same size, as the room her Doctor used, but everything about it was clearly his. From the sparse but comfortable decorations, to the few personal odds and ends lying about, everything had that familiar Doctor feel, and pointed to a man who spent very little time there. But he'd needed to rest and if he wasn't here she wondered where he might have gone.

Making it back to the console room with only one wrong turn along the way, Martha wasn't surprised to find the Doctor was already there. He was bent over the Librarian's archive muttering to himself as he read whatever was on the screen, and as she came closer he flashed her a quick smile over his shoulder.

"Did you get any sleep?" she asked.

"Yes; more than I thought I would."

"Where? On the metaphorical couch?" The Doctor gave her a quizzical look. "You gave me your room, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. I stayed in the Zero Room. It's a space within the TARDIS where I can completely cut myself off from the rhythms and noise of the universe, quiet my own mind."

"But you haven't stayed in there before." It was a statement more than a question.

"No," he replied, studying the archive a little too intensely.

Martha could picture him going days without sleep, and when he couldn't resist it any longer falling into a restless slumber filled with demons and unbidden memories. She wondered if he was even aware he was punishing himself, that he didn't use this room that could give him relief as some form of self-flagellation.

She watched him, continuing as subtle a visual exam as she could make. The Zero Room sounded exactly like what he'd needed, and she had to admit he looked very much like himself, focused and alert, if a bit more quiet.

He straightened and turned toward her, amusement in his eyes. "I don't need an exam, Doctor Jones. I'm fine."

"I suppose it's kind of second nature," Martha averred, "but point taken."

The Doctor closed the archive and started the final programming, moving slowly around each side of the console. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be." She put the book down beneath the seat as she watched the Doctor continue his preparations. It felt almost like the calm before the storm; everything seemed inordinately quiet and still. "I know we don't expect this other Librarian to just give up and reverse everything," she asserted, walking in a broad circle toward the ramp.

"You never know. Stranger things have happened."

"Yes, well, let's just say I don't think it's freezing in hell just yet."

"No."

"So what do we need to do?"

"Destroy his books, every one. He used them to create these revisionist histories. Once they're gone it will be as if they never existed, creating a kind of temporal loop."

"Did he use the books to create the void in the time vortex?"

"Partially, yes." The Doctor stopped and gave Martha his complete attention.

"So we'll be destroying the void at the same time."

"It'll make a Dramedae cage fight look like a garden party."

"What are the odds of our getting out before the whole place goes up?"

The Doctor looked her straight in the eye. "I won't lie to you, escaping as the void collapses won't be easy. But this old girl and I have some tricks up our sleeves; we'll see you through this."

As yesterday had wound down, Martha had the distinct feeling this could be her last trip, yet still found herself strangely serene. She'd had a unique privilege, experienced untold wonders she couldn't have even imagined before this impossible man came into her life. No matter what happened, she knew there was no other place she'd rather be.

"You all right?"

"'I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.'"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows in a silent question, making Martha smile. "It's William Allen White. I'm trying to say I'm not worried about what's to come. I'm at peace with where I've been, what I've done and where I am. Plus," she added in a cheerier tone, patting her pocket, "I've already called my mum."

The Doctor gave her an odd look but then his face brightened. "You have a mobile phone."

"Yes."

"Give it to me," he ordered, fishing his sonic screwdriver and what looked like a pager out of his pocket. "It can help boost the remote signal for this device."

"Are you ever going to tell me what that is?" she asked, handing the phone to him.

"Leverage. If we're lucky, an incentive to get this Librarian to see things our way. It emits an artificial electromagnetic vibration and can hopefully destroy the void." He finished tweaking the equipment then pocketed everything. "You don't mind if I hang on to that, do you?"

"If you break it you're getting me a new one."

"With all the bells and whistles."

Martha huffed a small laugh and continued around the console. "It's going to take a lot out of her, isn't it?" Martha asked, unconsciously caressing one of the stanchions that curved down from the ceiling.

"Yes, but she'll be fine."

"No, I know. I'm sure you've been through worse together."

"Possibly."

"Yeah, you have. I know you; you like 'problems'," she said, sarcastically emphasizing the word with air quotes.

"I almost thought you were going to say the TARDIS told you."

"No, although sometimes I think it might be possible. I think she can talk to you, in her way."

"What did I tell you about her?"

"Not much; I read a little about TARDISes in the library."

"I hope I'll have time to remedy that," he said softly, holding Martha's gaze for just a moment. "Which reminds me," he exclaimed, suddenly animated. "Assuming we get back to the TARDIS in one piece there won't be time to program a destination, so I should do it now."

"How about True Paradise?"

"True what?"

"I think that's right, one of the places the Librarian said were erased out of existence."

The Doctor's brow furrowed for a moment as he tried to shut out the altered knowledge and piece the real information together. "Right, True Paradise. You don't want to go there. It's just a big city, fancy spires and things. Besides, if we've got it terribly wrong it may not even be there."

"Fair point. So where should we go?"

"I think the Venth Colony on Kazi. Soft lavender beaches, a light drizzle of warm prismatic rain, and the freshest, clearest air this side of Ronesus."

"Sounds beautiful."

"We'll have earned a break. Plus I'll have to rewire the TARDIS for normal time travel. Could take days, maybe weeks for all I know." He gave her a sly grin and Martha couldn't help returning it. "Ready?"

"Never more so," she replied, holding on tightly.

They set off, at first just like any other trip: the dematerialization felt the same, the Doctor seemed to be running through familiar procedures. But then it was as if they were speeding and changing altitude, the velocity and pressure evident inside the TARDIS. Martha's ears began to pop and there was a constant pull to the right as though they were banking hard. She was surprised at the smooth ride. She'd been expecting to be jostled and thrown about the cabin, shaken within an inch of her life. Instead it was more a steady weighted stream as the TARDIS flew along the modified wormhole toward the void. The Doctor was slightly more animated than usual, almost dancing about the controls, making adjustments as they went. In what seemed like no time, the TARDIS began to rematerialize, and Martha watched the Doctor's face, seeing a mixture of worried hopefulness replaced by relief as they appeared to land safely.

He checked and rechecked several readings then looked at Martha with a big smile spread across his face.

"Welcome to the void."

"Hearing that from you with a shit-eating grin is a little unnerving," she laughed, once again struck by the absurdity of all this. "What's the plan?"

"I don't really have one."

"O-kaaay," Martha said dubiously.

"I have no idea what exactly we're dealing with. Using their mark to find them, those bounces of the pulse very likely told them that someone knows where they are, and I imagine anything entering this void is detectable. We know it's a Librarian, but one with more power than any I've ever encountered or heard of before. They've made their base in an empty pocket within the time vortex, something that should be impossible. We're going to have to make things up as we go along."

"Right. Improvisation as serendipity."

"Hmm. I like that. It could be my motto." His slight smile quickly disappeared. "This is going to be dangerous, Martha. I'd tell you to stay here if I thought you'd listen."

"Glad we don't have to waste time having that argument."

"I've landed the TARDIS just outside a sphere of telecite energy; most likely whoever's here is inside. It's very stormy outside. Nothing caustic, just be ready."

Martha nodded in understanding. She felt as though they were heading off to battle, which, in a way, they probably were. Her breathing was even and steady, but she could feel every beat of her heart, could practically taste the tang of contained fear on her tongue. She'd come to live for these moments, maybe too much. It was perhaps a side effect of frequently living in the midst of life and death situations. She zipped up her jacket and started to follow the Doctor.

"Hold on." He stopped, looking back toward the seat across from them. "Bring the book with you."

"The book on Librarians?" Martha asked, taking a hesitant step toward it. "Why?"

"It could be helpful. Keep it under your jacket, though; don't let anyone see."

Martha retrieved the book and slid it into the waistband of her jeans then closed her jacket over it. If anything she supposed it could serve as some kind of body armor.

"What's so funny?" The Doctor asked, catching the small giggle.

"Nothing," she smiled. "Just a stupid thought." She held his gaze as he looked torn between chastising her or demanding to be let in on the joke. Slowly his expression turned more serious.

"Be careful. I need you to promise."

"Always, Doctor. I promise."

Seemingly satisfied with her response, he gave a quick nod and they headed down the ramp and out into the void.


	4. Chapter 4

The moment Martha stepped beyond the TARDIS door, she thought she would be swept away on a torrent of air. The wind whipped around them in a raging frenzy, so hard she had to fight to breathe. The ground seemed not quite solid, their feet marginally sinking with every step, giving an almost springy and unstable feeling.

Partially shielding her from the wind with his body, the Doctor began walking toward a foggy expanse directly in front of them. It looked like an enormous grey cloud sitting static on the ground, unfazed by the gale that blew around it. It stretched as high as could be seen into the air and formed an endless wall across the entire landscape even beyond the horizon.

As they moved closer, a descending flight of stairs became barely visible through the murky barrier, but where they led or what was at the bottom could not be seen. The Doctor stole a quick glance at Martha, and after a silent confirmation that she was all right, they started down. The solidness of the steps was a welcome change, but the further they descended the more disorienting it became. They took each step on faith, not able to see where their feet were landing or whether the staircase was narrowing.

If the Doctor was fazed by any of it, Martha couldn't tell. He took each step as confidently as the first, never slowing down, never faltering. She kept his pace despite having the distinct feeling she was at imminent risk of falling over the side. Her vision was becoming more and more impaired, and when even the Doctor disappeared into the grey mass that surrounded them, she felt the first strings of panic tug at her heart. But seconds later he slowly reappeared and the air began to filter, gradually clearing until they finally emerged on the far side, a few steps above a cream-colored marble floor in a ghostly white circular room ringed with doric columns.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Martha felt a little foolish to already be slightly rattled. Losing sight of the Doctor in that grey mass, if only for a moment, had sent adrenaline surging through her, and now she concentrated on steadying her heartbeat, evening out her breathing. This was nothing like she expected. The idea of a void conjured up images of large, empty expanses of darkness. Outside, where the storm raged, had been dark but not all-consuming, and in here it was so bright it was nearly blinding.

If the Doctor could tell she was still a bit unsteady he didn't let on. He turned in a circle, trying to get his bearings. There appeared to be a hallway leading off from this room between each set of columns, like spokes on a wheel. But more careful examination revealed all but one to be trompe l'œil. He walked to the edge of the real corridor and stood for a moment staring down its length. It appeared to go on for miles, straight as an arrow, the tile on the floor a perfect grid angling to infinity.

"We need to locate the power source being used to maintain this place."

"They can't just write this all into existence."

"No. Not even a Time Lord would have the strength to maintain this. Plus, I can feel the engine through the floor."

Martha tried to see if she could feel anything mechanical, but all she could sense was the cool, slickness in the air, the slightly unnatural quality to the room. It didn't feel like the walls had any weight, that there was any substance around them. And yet she could touch them, could push against them and they didn't yield.

"It feels strange, I know," the Doctor acknowledged, quickly looking around the room again then starting down the hall at a good clip. "None of it is really here, just like when we were in the Gateway."

"But it didn't feel ... wrong there."

"No, but the Librarian maintaining it was of a different character. It reflected his personality."

"What do we do when we find the power source?"

A harsh look and an almost imperceptible shake of his head were the only answers the Doctor gave. Martha looked around them, wondering if the Doctor saw a camera or some device that could be eavesdropping on them but could find nothing visible. She hurried to catch up, continuing down the never-ending hallway that now mysteriously was comprised of innumerable twists and corners but no doorways, no way to turn off. The further they walked, the more confusing it became, and when Martha glanced back everything behind was completely different, the end of the hall only a few feet behind, and instead of stark white the walls were covered in a Baroque-style fresco. Martha began to feel as if they were being driven forward, herded toward one inexorable place.

"He's trying to play with us," the Doctor seethed, "constructing a maze to disorient us, to lead us directly to whatever traps he has in store." The Doctor's footsteps never slowed, though. He continued confidently along until Martha could hear a strange buzzing and the Doctor stopped abruptly, pulling the pager-like contraption out of his pocket. It vibrated softly in his hand as he turned from side to side, growing slightly stronger when he angled it toward the right.

"It's found something," he remarked, turning the device off while pulling out his sonic screwdriver. He aimed intermittent pulses across and then down the wall, every now and then looking with growing concern back down the hall. "Stay close to me. On the other side."

Martha shifted to the Doctor's opposite side, keeping a loose hold on a corner of his jacket. The end of the hall was definitely getting closer, changing in size as it went. It seemed to grow more substantial, and even though they could easily continue down the hall to move way from it, it had a menacing feeling to it, as if once it got close enough it could warp around them and box them in. She looked eagerly back toward the Doctor as he continued moving his screwdriver methodically, but slightly more desperately, along the wall. Finally, with a barely audible _snick_ , an expanse of the wall disappeared, opening out into a low-lit, brownish-grey room. The Doctor ushered Martha inside and as he stepped in after her the wall continued past the doorway, seemingly dragging a massive slab of stone that effectively blocked the opening.

"Are we trapped in here?" Martha breathed, feeling out of breath though she'd not exerted herself.

"No." The Doctor's tone was clipped and cold, but Martha understood his brusque manner. There was likely limited time to do whatever he needed with this machine and he needed to concentrate.

Martha was surprised by how industrial it looked, the ultimate steampunk apparatus. Dented conduits studded with giant rivets bent around in a twisted arc, surrounding a large life-size tubular structure that circled around them in a serpentine shape. There were enormous, heavy-looking doors opening into the tubes at various places, and the Doctor was currently half in, half out of one, holding the pager near a keypad and scanning device. There was a metallic taste in the air and the floor, while seemingly clean, felt both gritty and tacky underfoot.

She turned back toward the Doctor and saw utter frustration on his face. "I can't match the resonance," he grumbled, clenching his teeth. As she reached his side the room was suddenly bathed in a purplish light and a quiet but persistent horn began to sound. The Doctor only stopped working for a second, fishing out his screwdriver and handing it to Martha.

"Find another exit, setting 179F, map the walls just as I did." He added, seeing her run to the closest side of the room, "No, whatever that is it's coming from over there. Go to the opposite side."

Quickly she crossed the room, half hidden from the Doctor by one of the large metal tubes. She fumbled a little with the setting but then began probing the wall as quickly as possible. Every now and then she heard a muffled curse from the Doctor, his difficulties with the device growing. And still the horn grew closer and closer, its pitch intensifying. Across and down, Martha moved the screwdriver over the wall, willing it to disappear beneath her hands. The horn steadily grew louder and louder, filling the room with intense blasts, drowning out the steady pulse from the screwdriver and the beeps from the remote device.

"Got you!" the Doctor shouted elatedly, and in the next instant an opening appeared in front of Martha. "I found a door!" she yelled, trying to be heard over the ever increasing bleating of the alarm.

"One more second to finish the alignment!" the Doctor responded. Martha stood poised, ready to both run through with the Doctor or begin looking for a new door should this one suddenly close. At that moment there was a small wave of pressure, like a quick but intense shift in altitude, and the wall next to Martha shifted in toward the room putting her on the outside while the Doctor remained in the room. Another fraction of a second and the opening closed right before her eyes.

"No!!" She began probing the wall with the screwdriver again, desperately trying to reopen the arch. "Doctor!!" The horns became deafening, piercing Martha's ears as she clutched her hands to her head. And then all was silent.

She straightened, beat her hand against the wall. "Doctor, can you hear me?!" She began working along the wall, searching for that special point that would slide something open but nothing worked. It was as if this wall was now permanently locked. Martha leaned her head against it, realizing that it was more than likely the Doctor had been caught. She wouldn't let herself think about more dire consequences.

"Assume he's been captured; what next?" she quietly asked herself, then remembered the Doctor's concern of their possibly being overheard. _Right, you have to find him. Where would they take him?_ She turned and for the first time really looked at the room she was in. It was a kind of strange arboretum, but instead of being filled with a variety of plants, an abundance of foliage and flowers reaching for the light of clerestory windows, this room was covered in dank-looking spores and fungus, grown to unpleasant and preposterous sizes. It wasn't particularly odorous but the air felt almost gummy, dense against her skin. She walked further into the room, looking around, trying to think through what her next move should be. _If the Doctor's a prisoner, my best guess is he'll be taken to the Librarian who's done all this. If he's not captured, he has no way of opening these doorways without his screwdriver so he'll have to follow whatever route the Librarian wants him to take, which is very likely directly to him. Either way, that's where you need to go._

She turned slowly, trying to decide which wall might lead to the passage they had been following when they first arrived. It could be gone now, but perhaps whatever was in its place could help get her on the right track. She'd just started to walk over toward the left side of the room, when something red caught her eye. She looked down and there was a red feather sticking out of one of the pots, standing in stark relief to the muddiness elsewhere in the room. Finding it unusual, she bent to pick it up and found it was actually an old-fashioned quill pen. Martha stared at it for several moments, twirling it between her fingers oddly transfixed, as if there was some lost piece of memory she couldn't quite recall in some way connected to a quill.

Another wave of pressure shook her from her thoughts and now the room was considerably smaller, the whole right side shifted in several feet. Without thinking she stuck the pen inside her jacket and jogged over to the left-side wall. There was an archway already open, but as much as it felt like a trap Martha went through and found herself in a similar hallway as before. The opening disappeared behind her and she started walking. It still felt like being herded, but in her gut Martha believed all roads must lead to the Librarian, and she was certain the Doctor would be there.

  


The Doctor opened his eyes to find himself in what at first glance looked like a cozy study - a fire burned warmly in the corner hearth, a small computer terminal balanced precariously on the mantlepiece; the walls covered with built-in shelving crammed full of books; a large mahogany desk piled high with volume after volume sat center stage, one large book lying open on the blotter - but the Doctor could feel the room opened out behind him into a space much larger than the snug and sheltered alcove in front. His arms were secured across his body by a device he couldn't see but that worked quite a bit like a straight jacket, and his legs were shackled to each of the chair legs holding him in place. And sitting behind the desk, presiding over everything in a green velvet armchair, sat the man they had been looking for.

He wore a long, red gown faded with age, the collar and neckline edged in black satin, which draped voluminously over a rail-thin body. A matching muffin cap, but in much shabbier condition, adorned his head over a simple white linen coif. Topping everything was a laurel wreath as black as night. His face was lined and time-worn, his eyes weary but full of fire; though the Doctor would guess his age to be no more than 40, he looked to be nearly 60.

"Welcome, Doctor, to the Citadel of the Forgotten," he pronounced, gesturing broadly, "where you'll find all the lost stories, tales that time forgot. Or more accurately, the ones that were thrown over in favor of the yarns spun by your Librarian friend. How is he, by the way? Still thinks he's the only one left, does he?"

"You were trying to hide him. Sequester him away."

"I thought even if he started to remember he wouldn't be able to escape on his own, let alone find someone to help him. And yet, here you are."

"Outside of time itself."

"And I know you're dying to know how I did it."

"Curious, yes. What I most want to know is why you're rewriting history."

"That's such a banal term, Doctor. What I'm doing is far more than rewriting. It's creating a new foundation, recasting the players, restructuring the universe to make the pathways clearer. These are brand new stories, cleaner, more precise, more elegant." As he spoke he had risen to his feet and began walking back and forth behind the desk, his voice building to a crescendo.

"All made of whole cloth."

The Librarian stopped, his eyes boring holes through the Doctor. "The legendary superiority of the Time Lord, and where did it get you? Actually," he continued, sitting back down, "I should applaud you. I couldn't have written a better ending."

"You know my name. Why not tell me yours?"

"Ah, but I don't know your name, do I. How have you managed that? Fascinating. I've scoured every record I can find and yet it's hidden. That's a neat trick."

"I've got plenty more where that came from. Remove these and I'll show you."

"Really? Is that how you've decided to relate to me?" For a moment he looked genuinely crushed, slumped down in his seat. He looked at the Doctor for a long moment, as if deciding something, then straightened a little and smoothed out his robes. "But I do have a name of sorts for you, don't I. And to demonstrate my good nature, you shall have one for me as well. Since you call that old buffoon 'The Librarian' you may call me 'The Curator.'"

"Curator it is. Nice to meet you. Since we're being so good natured..."

"Ah, Martha Jones has joined us at last."

The Doctor tried in vain to twist around, knock his chair a bit, so he could see behind him.

"Don't trouble yourself, Doctor," the Curator said conspiratorially, his voice hushed. "I'm not concerned about her. I just thought it easier to have you both in the same place; keeping up that labyrinth and the drones is tiring. Besides, she believes she's crept in unnoticed. She's skulking along behind some of my back catalog, trying to be stealthy. It's sweet, actually."

He craned his neck a little to get a better view, then ducked down behind the desk and laughed, a crumbling cracked sound that had the same effect as nails on a blackboard. The Doctor grimaced, but took the opportunity to get a better look around the part of the room he could see. What was real and what was invented he couldn't be sure, not unless he could get closer, but he was pleased to see Martha's mobile perched on the mantlepiece. The remote device was nowhere to be seen, but he remembered the necessary resonance. It was possible he could use his screwdriver to adjust her phone to do the job on its own. If he could get out of this chair, of course, and get to Martha and the phone. He sat mulling over options and possibilities, his eyes fixated but unfocused on a snow globe perched on the edge of the Curator's desk.

"That's the Doctor I know and love. Always thinking. Always plotting. You love him too, don't you, Martha?"

The Doctor could almost feel her indecision: should she stay put or step forward; what would be the best move to make?

"Martha, stay where you are!" he yelled. "Don't come out!"

"Yes, stay where you are, my child. Leave this to the big boys. I know our friend thinks very highly of her," he raised his voice slightly to make sure it carried across the room, "but you and I know better, don't we, Doctor. She's just another stupid ape getting in the way, asking irrelevant and idiotic questions."

"Curator." The Doctor stopped and paused, looking as if he was just about to speak.

The Curator stared at him, waiting for him to continue, and then finally fed up with the delay snapped, "Yes?"

"You've gone to a lot of trouble to erase any mention of you, any record of your existence."

"Knowledge is power, Doctor."

"Yes, and the pen is mightier than the sword. You erased your own story; why didn't you fade out of the universe? Why didn't you disappear?"

"Good question. But not one I'm inclined to answer."

"Talk about neat tricks. All traces of you removed from every known source. And yet, some remnant, buried deep, disguised."

Martha listened to the Doctor, suspecting he was really talking to her. _What did he call him again? Curator. That can't be his real name, but maybe he used it before._ As quietly as possible she opened her jacket and pulled out the book. The quill slipped to the floor, thankfully without a sound, and as she picked it up she sat down and began reading through the pages, looking for something that might be connected to the Curator.

"Yes, yes, yes," the Curator sighed. "I'm surprised at how boring you are. I was expecting much more scintillating conversation. I know," he perked up, pulling the open book in front of him closer to his chair. "Let's talk about Earth. I know how sickeningly fond you are of those little creatures." He began flipping through the volume, skimming the pages. "Humans are so easily led; just one little nudge and they're off in a new direction."

"Like what you did with Frierice Ellesane? Was it a little push that changed her entire life?"

"Oh, Frierice. You knew her didn't you? Or rather the person she was before. Does it bother you, to think of her as so ordinary? That's one of my finest moments, Doctor. Perhaps a thousand alterations across several volumes and the astounding achievements of Frierice Ellesane just disappear. Sometimes you give them something else to discover, something less significant but then again they're not too bright; they really never know the difference."

He cocked his head out toward the rest of the room. "Did you hear that, Martha?! Don't let him fool you; his disdain for humans is only matched by his fascination with them."

The Curator returned his attention to the Doctor. "How much would it take to nudge her, do you think?" He dug through a pile, pulling out another book and skimming through it. "Martha Jones. Fascinating girl, fascinating life."

The Doctor froze, staring at the book in the Curator's hands. He felt helpless and stupid. The only risk to Martha's life that he'd worried about had been their destination and how they'd manage to get out. But here this man sat, her life literally in his hands, able to write her out of existence as casually as someone writes an entry in their diary.

"It seems I may have underestimated her," the Curator mused, tapping a finger on one cream-colored page. "Very impressive things in her future. How much did that sad little Librarian help craft, I wonder?"

"Like you said; she's just a human."

"So was Frierice Ellesane." He bent over the book, studying every paragraph. "Oh, now, I have a better idea, even sweeter than wiping out her entire existence. Let's go bigger, go farther. She could be born into slavery, make slavery the foundation for Earth's economy well into the 35th century, just for good measure. How would you like that, Doctor? It'd take some very careful planning, but we have all the time in the world, don't we. Just think of how far it would set back your precious humans. Oh, that one, that one I have to write down. Where is my quill." He tucked Martha's book under his arm, and began searching on his desk, rifling through drawers.

Martha slowly fingered the pen beside her. Could it be as ridiculously simple as that? A lost pen and they can stop him from at least causing more damage? She listened to him rummaging for it as she carefully slid it behind her, just in case he could see her through a surveillance camera or something.

The Curator had moved to a table in the far corner, lifting and shifting everything on it. "Here it is. I must have been working on my Jupiter project, always tend to wander a bit when I get in the groove." He returned to his desk and sat down, turned to an empty page in the large volume in front of him and began making notes, muttering quietly to himself.

"That's a bit risky, don't you think? Having tools lying about that anyone could use to rewrite history."

"The key is not only knowing what to write but *how* to write it. Given time you'd no doubt figure it out, but you don't really have that kind of time and you've never read one of our books. So," the Curator smiled disarmingly, "I think my tools are safe."

He finished writing with an exaggerated flourish "That one really pleases me. Imagine how she'd suffer in that kind of world, like being sentenced to a lifetime of torture. But I'm getting ahead of myself." He placed Martha's book back on the desk. "It's always best to start small with a new subject, do little test runs, as they say. What do you think, Doctor, what should we tweak in the lovely Martha's life? Where are that nasty man's fingerprints?"

"What about me?" the Doctor implored. "What has he done to my life?"

"Ah," the Curator sat back in his chair, his head thrown back in ecstasy and a broad smile on his face. "Always willing to sacrifice yourself. Then again, other people are willing to sacrifice themselves for you too. You engender that kind of loyalty." He pulled himself upright, the look of complete bliss replaced with a smooth salesman's smile. "But we're finally here, where I've been dying for us to go since I knew you'd arrived." He closed Martha's book with a snap, gave it a quick pat as he placed it on one of his piles, then pushed the large notebook toward the front of the desk. "We need to make room for you, Doctor. You are a multiple volume feast and I've devoured each one." He dragged a large and ancient-looking book across the desk and opened it. "This is but part 15. You know what the most interesting thing is, Doctor? You have influenced so many of his precious stories without the Librarian having to pick up a pen. But there's very little of his messy scrawl in your story. And that's what makes it wonderful. To erase you would take an incredible collection of edits, it would be like putting a million piece jigsaw puzzle together in the dark."

"Is that what you want to do then? Erase me."

"Oh I do so love a challenge. But what I love more is power. And if you were to join me, Doctor, there would be nothing more powerful."

"Join you?"

"Don't sneer. I don't come empty handed." The Curator pulled a small notepad from the desk drawer, opened to a new page and started to write. As if struck, the Doctor cried out but then he began to smile, a look of pure joy on his face. "These notepads are my greatest invention. They move even your deepest memories to the forefront of your brain, let you relive them as if they were happening now, even lets me embellish them."

The Curator wrote a few more lines then stopped to watch the Doctor, his eyes closed, his body fully relaxed. "Our memories can be precious gifts, can't they? Things we can open and enjoy for our entire lives. They can give us strength, resilience, hope."

Slowly, he turned to the next page and began to write again. Suddenly the Doctor's eyes opened wide in shock and horror. "No!" he yelled, a piercing cry full of agony and despair. Martha jolted at the sound of the Doctor's pain, tears welling up in her eyes that she quickly blinked back.

 _Think, Martha. You have to have enough to do something. He's choosing to go by the Curator. He's isolated the Librarian. He's managed to remove himself from any record yet not erase himself. But it can't just be for covering his tracks. When he talks about the Librarian, it's almost as though he hates him, like he wants to punish him by making him believe he's all alone. This is personal._

Martha continued to turn the pages of the book, was mildly surprised to find the last few pages blank. Her mind raced to come up with a plan. She knew she couldn't stop the Curator herself, but she couldn't see a way of freeing the Doctor right under the Curator's nose.

 _Think small,_ Martha reminded herself, _like in the movies when they want to hack into a highly secure network through some unimportant and relatively unguarded backdoor. What would be small enough he won't notice right away, but still strong enough to have an affect on him. And what did he say, it's not just what you write but how you write it?_

The Curator had been watching the Doctor twist and twitch like a fish on his line. Every now and then he'd add a few more details, another shade of invented nuance to make the picture even more horrifying, more tragic. The real memory was a nightmare, but in his hands it turned into a never-ending, ever evolving terror.

"Sometimes memory can slowly eat away at us, demoralize us, change us. It was so quick, wasn't it Doctor. One flash of blinding light and Gallifrey was gone, burning like a thousand suns. I can't imagine what that must have felt like, to witness the death of all of your people by your own hand. How much pain you must be in Doctor. How you must suffer. We could erase it all, you and me, together. Permanent deletion of the root cause of all of your anguish. With your help we can brush the Daleks out of existence. Without the Daleks, there is no Time War. No Time War, no destruction of Gallifrey. It's within your grasp, Doctor. With my help you can see the end to so much suffering."

The Curator slowly smiled, knowing he didn't actually need the Doctor's cooperation. If he could push him to the right mental state, he'd be able to take what he wanted. He'd managed to bridge most of the divide between Librarians and Time Lords on his own, had achieved the impossible. But with all the secrets locked in a Time Lord's mind, he'd be unstoppable, the ultimate power in the Universe.

But the Doctor was strong; even in agony he was resisting, holding on to the very heart of himself. All at once the Curator realized that it was because of that human. The Doctor felt responsible for her, wanted to see her survive this. If he killed her, that would likely merely increase the Doctor's resolve, and there was no time to revise her real story to take her out of the picture. He turned to a new page in his notepad; he could give the Doctor the false memory that they'd left the void together, that Martha was home safe and sound.

Martha finished writing her addition to the Librarian's book and quickly read through it. It had taken two full pages and she fervently hoped she had managed to match the metaphoric style in the rest of the book. It had been the only idea she could come up with, the only thing that might weaken, or at the very least distract, the Curator so she could get to the Doctor. But was it enough? And if it was, how long would it take to work? She closed the book, held it close to her and willed every ounce of good luck and positive energy into it. When the Doctor cried out once more, Martha knew she'd have to rely on faith, she couldn't wait to see what effect, if any, her words had. She palmed the sonic screwdriver, trying to keep it hidden under her sleeve, and stepped out hoping she looked more confident than she felt.

The Curator stopped writing as she approached, cursing a little under his breath. If he fed the memory that she was home to the Doctor and then he saw her, he'd start trying to work out the conflicting information and it'd be even longer before he could access the Doctor's mind. Out of everything he read about the Doctor, the one thing he could never understand was this blind faith and devotion he seemed to receive from such simple creatures. The Curator thought of them almost like intergalactic dogs, latching onto the first being who would take them, giving them their complete loyalty. The only difference is they were annoyingly unpredictable.

"Martha, now is not a very good time." He considered creating a drone to subdue her, realized he probably should have done that the moment she walked in the room. But he'd been trying to conserve energy, thought she'd be nothing more than a nuisance, but now. He was so close to getting what he wanted and this little thing could ruin everything. Plus she had something in her hand, probably something of the Doctors. That wouldn't do for a start.

His train of thought stopped abruptly, noticing Martha was now only a step away from being in the Doctor's line of sight. How did she get so close so fast? Had he just been sitting here staring at her? Why did it suddenly feel as if his thoughts were swimming through quicksand? Something was wrong.

Martha didn't understand why the Curator wasn't doing anything. Maybe he saw her as so little of a threat he didn't need to bother with her. Whatever the reason, it meant she could now see the Doctor, see the pain and anguish he was going through, all from words on a page.

"Torturing him is pointless, he won't help you."

Both men looked at her without speaking, the Doctor's focus becoming stronger, the Curator's becoming more confused. The silence, the lack of reaction, frightened her. Was the Doctor booby trapped? Is that why the Curator seemed so indifferent to her? Initially she'd walked between them to see the Doctor's face, but now she backed up and knelt beside him. She was thankful to see him turn his head to look at her.

"What setting, Doctor? What setting should I use to release these bonds?" She didn't bother whispering, expecting the Curator would to be able to hear her no matter how far away they were.

The Doctor swallowed thickly, squeezed his eyes shut before refocusing on Martha. He understood the Curator had been feeding him memories and something else, something much stronger. It heightened his memories, made them more real, but it was also making connections in his brain, connections the Doctor couldn't fight off easily. He'd been losing the battle but now they felt weaker, more stringy, and he didn't think it was because he'd become any stronger.

"Try the same one. One, seven," he paused, trying to remember.

"It's okay, I know it," she soothed, slipping the screwdriver out of her sleeve and setting to work along the Doctor's bonds.

"What have you done?" the Curator seethed, finally working out what was happening to him. He tried to stand but his legs wouldn't support him. Martha glanced up but continued ignoring him, continuing the pulses along what she hoped were the locks.

The Curator began to rage, clutching his head. "No no no no! He's recreating his own history, the history of our people. He's discovered me, they've all discovered me!" He dropped his head into his hands, a low ruined moan sounding in his throat.

The Doctor glanced at Martha, wondering if she had indeed done something. Maybe the Librarian had finally worked some things out on his own and was fighting back. His own mind was clearing quickly, his thoughts becoming more his own and easier to control.

"He has mechanical drones," the Doctor warned. "They can appear anywhere at his whim, and they inject you with something."

Martha nodded. "That blaring alarm? Is that them?"

"That's for show, to disorient. With him in the room I doubt ..."

There was a loud crack as the contraption that bound his arms released, nearly toppling the Doctor backward with the force. The Curator seemed to wake up at the sound, shaken into action. A whir of metal could be heard from the ceiling, steadily getting closer.

"It's you he's after, Martha, he blames you! Give me the screwdriver, avoid the drone, whatever you do don't let it near you!"

She wasn't sure, felt strange just leaving him still tied to the chair, but she trusted his judgment so quickly pushed the tool into his palm and started back toward where she had originally come from. She pulled up short as a mass of misshapen metal appeared right in front of her. It looked like scraps of material had been fastened together with nothing but a few bolts and some baling wire. Two cylindrical, jointed arms with thick needles for fingers snapped toward her and she ducked, pushing herself across the floor on her hands and knees until she had cleared it, then shoving back onto her feet and running for the boxes and cabinets that she had hidden behind.

"What did you do, you stupid little girl?! What did you do?!" The Curator stood and started stalking after Martha, his face contorted by malice and cruelty. He'd momentarily forgotten about the Doctor, his fury creating blinkers in his mind.

The Doctor had finally freed his legs when the Curator passed him. He could see the singular focus, all the Curator's wrath centered on Martha, and the Doctor had to stop him. He jogged over to the fireplace and grabbed the terminal. His knowledge of the Librarians was finally beginning to clear; their friend from the Gateway was busily recreating their records and now the Doctor could much more readily remember details about so many things. _Their books form a discrete computer network,_ he reminded himself, his fingers flying over the keys, _interconnected data entry modules and storage terminals. But if you enter the right subroutines, corrupt the buffer and enter a virus into the core, the system will purge itself. Delete every book, down to the final period._

Martha was running out of options. Everything she tried to hide behind or under vanished into thin air thanks to that little parlor trick the Librarians shared. She swore she could hear three of those misshapen drones now, circling around, trying to cut her off. Martha backtracked and swerved, dove and slid, and hoped the Doctor had some kind of plan. As she launched herself once again from her main hiding place, the final card catalog blinking out of existence a moment before, for the first time the Curator became distracted, seeing a book and quill on the floor.

"So that's your secret," he snarled, immediately heading for it.

Martha noticed what had drawn his attention, was surprised to see an averagely thick volume where it once had been very thin. "Doctor!" she shouted, "he's going to get the book!"

The Doctor finished entering the bad code and watched as the system confirmed the first of the archive's deletions. "Don't worry! He can't change anything now!"

The Curator froze, every fiber of his being sensing his collection slowly being destroyed one book at a time. He turned to see the Doctor's self-satisfied face smiling smugly at him.

"I offered you salvation, Doctor, your only chance to save your world. And you try to erase mine?" Two of the drones refocused on the Doctor, the needled hands transforming to knives, as the Curator started back toward his desk. He fished a crystal, key-like object out of a pocket hidden in the folds of his robes, and the walls and furnishings near the Doctor began to close in around him, effectively putting him in a corner.

With the odds more evenly matched, Martha ran for the only weapon she could see – the Librarian's book – and when the drone chasing her got close enough swung at it as hard as she could. It ricocheted against the wall and flew into the Curator's back, puncturing him with two of its needled fingers.

As the Doctor ducked the first pass of one of the drones, he saw the Curator's face contort from anger to shock to pain to nothing. The drones fell to the floor as the Curator's body dropped heavily to the ground. There was an odd stillness. The Doctor glanced at Martha, saw her dazed almost horrified expression, looked back at the Curator's much too still body then grabbed Martha's phone just before everything began to become unglued.

Martha stood gulping in lungful after lungful of air, staring at the Curator's body, frozen in place. She couldn't see him breathing, could see no movement at all. Her thoughts were on a perpetual loop: Shouldn't he just be unconscious? Why isn't he breathing? Then the room began to waver and shimmer before her eyes, the walls and floor to ripple and move. She searched for the Doctor, saw him fiddling with her cell phone and his screwdriver then look for her.

As the Doctor finished altering the phone so it would emit the same artificial vibration as the original resonating device he found it harder to keep his feet. The entire structure was shifting and cracking and it wouldn't be long before it collapsed into itself. He turned on the phone to test his work and was confused when its signal was directed toward the Curator's desk, not toward the power source as he'd expected. _The snowglobe with no snow,_ he remembered, _an amphoric globe_ , and he hurriedly picked it up.

"We have to go," he said, tinkering with the globe in his hand. "Without him this structure, and soon after that the void itself, won't exist." He stepped over to the Curator, removed the crystal key from his hand and inserted it into the globe. "This will make our exit a little easier and buy us a little time, but not much." He walked toward the right-hand wall, laid the globe on the surface, and a doorway opened immediately. Only then did he realize Martha hadn't moved.

She stood looking at the Curator, fixated on him, shutting out everything but his lifeless body. She'd never killed anyone before. The pig slaves in New York, she'd regretted having to kill them, but it felt different somehow. It hadn't been so hands on, so immediate. She dropped the Librarian's book to the floor - the size continuing to shift and grow becoming awkward and heavy in her hand - the thud muffled as the ground continued to lose its substance.

"Martha." The Doctor's voice close beside her seemed to wake her out of a trance. She looked at him and he smiled gently. "It was an accident, and I know that doesn't make it better but right now we have to leave." He reached out his hand and she took it, pulled herself back into the present, and with a quick nod that she was all right they set off.

Leaving the Citadel was even more difficult than the Doctor had imagined. With the power generator still running, rather than disappearing the moment the Curator died the structure began to diminish, its very form shifting and changing at an ever increasing pace. Corridors cut off, rooms changed shape, and if not for the amphoric resonator the Doctor took from the Curator's desk they would never have escaped. Twice a wall sprang up between them, nearly catching one or both of them in its wake. And all the while they kept moving as quickly as they could, going more on instinct than any sense of direction, counting on a rough sense memory to guide them toward the entrance.

When they finally reached what had been the circular room at the bottom of the stairs, the Citadel was nearly gone. A steep, rock-strewn hill was the only means left to reach the TARDIS, and to make matters worse now that the generator was exposed to the void it began to shut down. Energy from the vortex began to seep through, streaking through the sky like flashes of multihued lightning. The ground became even more sponge-like and elastic, in places rending apart leaving more gaps for the vortex to stream through. The Doctor and Martha scrambled up the hill, sliding or sinking down almost as often as they managed to climb up. Every muscle in Martha's body ached by the time they finally reached the top, her legs burning from exertion. And still they ran on, rocked by tremors and buffeted by gale force winds.

Within just a few meters of the TARDIS, another large quake rumbled across the patchy remains of the landscape, sending them both to the ground. For a moment Martha swore she saw the Doctor and the TARDIS disappear, flash out of time like the Citadel. Panic rising in her chest, she scrambled to her feet, closing her eyes for a moment against the ferocity of the wind. When she reopened them, the Doctor and the TARDIS were where they should have been, and breathing out a sigh of relief she rushed to help the Doctor get his footing, his knee having sunk into the spongy earth. Holding on to each other for support, they closed the remaining distance and stumbled their way into the TARDIS.

The Doctor ran to the controls, putting his full weight on the distortion lever while switching the TARDIS to its preset coordinates. "Hold on!" he yelled, just a second before an extreme churning lurch sent them both to the floor. The Doctor quickly grabbed for the lever again, staying mostly on the ground as he pulled it down, using himself as an anchor. Martha skidded her way to the nearest stanchion, only just managing to keep herself from flying around the room.

When things didn't quiet down, the Doctor shoved up onto his feet. "Hold this down!" he ordered, pulling himself along the console, making adjustments and corrections as he went. Somehow Martha managed to launch herself at the console, then grabbed the lever and pushed it down, holding on for dear life. The rocking and spinning convulsions continued for another few minutes, and Martha thought at any moment she would actually be sick. But finally, the TARDIS settled into its standard navigation bumpiness and in another moment had materialized.

The Doctor checked the navigation readouts. "We made it. The Venth Colony on Kazi." His voice sounded road weary, dull and uninterested. Martha tried to smile but it came out as more of a grimace. She took a couple of steps away from the console, looked blankly around the room. She should be feeling exalted, that nearly giddy feeling of still being alive. But all that was there was a cold emptiness. She rubbed her hands together, wiped them on her jeans, and continued to move away from the controls, finally sinking to the floor and sitting, her feet dangling over the side.

The Doctor watched her quietly, knew the heavy weight she had trouble resolving. They'd both made it out of the void, something that had seemed impossible just a few hours ago, but Martha had lost something precious in its vast emptiness.

He walked over and sat beside her, let the silence around them slightly warm before he spoke. "The first time is always hard, that shocking realization that you're not only capable of it but can actually do it. I know it makes no difference whether someone was good or bad, whether it was self-defense or an accident. It feels wrong; you question whether you have the right to take a life."

"I've been there when the Doctor had to kill, when he had no choice." Martha's voice was hushed and hoarse, as if it took an effort to push it from her throat. "I had to do the same thing once, a group of creatures who had once been human, and I didn't like it. But this." She leaned her head against the Doctor's shoulder and immediately he wrapped his arm around her.

"It will get better. It won't ever sit right, not really, but it will get better. Just remember he's the one who armed them; he meant to kill you."

"I know." Martha closed her eyes and just breathed, felt a welcoming comfort in the stillness of the TARDIS, the Doctor's warmth a grateful relief. "Do you ever get used to it, having to make that decision, having to act on it?"

"No. And I wouldn't want to."

"No." Martha smiled slightly, thinking she might actually believe him, that one day this would feel better. "How are you?"

"I'm okay."

"No, really. How are you?" Martha shifted a little to get a better look at the Doctor's face.

He took a deep breath and blew it out hard. "I'll be okay. The thoughts he manipulated, that he forced into my mind, it will take a little time to clear them."

"What was he doing to you? Do you mind talking about it?"

"No, not at all." The Doctor gave her shoulder a small squeeze, relieved she felt like asking questions again. "The best way I can think to describe it is manipulating the connections in the cerebral cortex, stealing real memories and giving them life, as if you were living them in the present. And when that didn't have the desired effect, he started altering them, making them more ... intense."

"He was showing you the destruction of Gallifrey."

"Yes. That and my part in it."

"He wanted to break you down so you'd agree to help him."

The Doctor shook his head and got to his feet, reaching out a hand to help Martha up. "No."

"But I heard..."

"He made the offer, yes, but that's not what he was after." He crossed over to the console and slid down to remove one of the panels underneath. "He was trying to create new pathways to every sector of my brain," he continued, beginning to reconfigure the TARDIS, "tap into Time Lord knowledge."

Martha sat cross-legged on the floor, happily taking up her mechanic assistant's duties. "That makes more sense. He had to know you'd never agree to join him."

"I'd be lying if I said the idea of wiping out the Daleks before they were even created wasn't tempting. They're only purpose is to kill. To spread across the galaxy and destroy everything and everyone. You don't know the Daleks and thankfully no one else will ever again."

"But I..." she began then wanted to hit herself, realizing yet again she was about to give him information from the future and in this case information that would probably demoralize him completely. "But I can imagine, if you think about it differently," she said slowly, sorting out what to say, "that the ones who survived maybe went on to achieve accomplishments that may never have happened had the Daleks not entered their lives."

The Doctor stopped working for a minute and looked at Martha, once again amazed at how her mind worked, at the places it naturally led her. And how without even knowing it she could always find the one thing that could ease his troubles. He smiled and laughed a little, then turned back to the circuitry. "Now that you mention it, off the top of my head I can think of one example. The Sila Balhan, nearly wiped out, left their sector, were basically nomads for years, went on to create the most advanced jumpgate network in the Sunflower and Whirlpool Galaxies. Revolutionized the industry, paved the way for interstellar travel for countless planets."

Seeing such a genuine smile on the Doctor's face made something flutter nervously in Martha's chest. She had to keep reminding herself that even if this arrangement wasn't as completely temporary as it was, that he was still the Doctor. How pathetic would she be falling for him twice? _Except,_ a little voice in her head persisted, _he wasn't the same man, not really, and there's already more trust and respect between you than you'll probably ever receive with the other Doctor._

"Earth to Martha."

"Hmmm?"

"Never realized sitting on the TARDIS floor could be so distracting."

"All right, all right," Martha laughed. "What were you saying?"

"When the Curator said he'd been discovered, that was because of you, wasn't it? So what did you do?"

"I thought about what you said, that if he'd really erased himself from history he would have vanished. If anyone could find the buried reference that kept him in existence it would have to be another Librarian. Or you, of course," she added with a small smile. "And then I remembered this saying, something about the walls forming the house but it was the empty space inside that made it a home. I hoped if I could give him back some of the structure the rooms inside would become more clear. So I wrote what I hoped would tell him he wasn't alone, that he wasn't the last of his kind."

"Fantastic. The Librarian was right. You do have a special gift." The Doctor smiled at Martha for a moment, then pocketed his sonic screwdriver and dropped everything else on the floor. "This can wait." He hopped up and started toward the door.

"I'm sorry?" Martha asked, hesitatingly getting to her feet.

"We're at the Venth Colony. One of the most peaceful locations in all of space and time. We deserve a break."

"Don't we have to get back to the Librarian?"

"What's the rush?" He extended his hand, and as surely as if she'd been attached to a retractable cable Martha found herself drawn down the ramp and firmly clasping his hand.

The Doctor had been right. Martha couldn't remember ever feeling quite so invigorated, as if her soul had been refreshed. From the moment she first filled her lungs with the rarified air, she could literally feel the catharsis begin from deep within her bones, with every breath one more shadow lifted. They'd wandered down to the shoreline, but what Martha had thought at first was a deep blue ocean turned out to be a sea of stones, both smooth and jagged-edged, in an amazing variety of shades of navy, cobalt and indigo. They sat and talked, laid back and listened to the distant cries of what the Doctor called the hightailed lowflyer, indigenous to the area. Martha found herself riding the ebb and flow of her breathing, a sensation of shedding her skin to make way for new growth. It had been an experience she would always treasure, and all the more for the Doctor's steady presence.

  


They were just completing the work to put the TARDIS back in its original condition, all modifications and special patches removed or changed back to their correct positions. The Doctor had been moving slower and slower, and he could tell Martha had noticed and was building up to ask if he was okay. And how would he answer that question? The truth was he was stalling, biding his time until there was nothing left to do except either return Martha to her own time and place or ask her to stay. He had been to Venth a few times in the past, but it had never felt as incredible as it had sharing it with Martha. There was an added cleansing touch, an extra element that had nothing to do with the therapeutic nature of the Kazi environment.

He'd thought he was finished with traveling companions. He wanted to be on his own, keep to himself, wear solitude like a badge of honor (or, in his more candid moments, a badge of punishment). But Martha made him feel alive, made him feel connected to the world again. He wanted to show her everything, see that look of intellectual curiosity and wonderment that made her a sight to behold. He wanted to challenge her perceptions and push her beliefs. And although it was unwise to admit this out loud, there was no denying he wanted her. But above everything else he wanted to be the one to guide her through time and space and introduce her to the wonders of the universe.

Martha walked slowly around the console as the Doctor finished the last connection that needed to be made to put the TARDIS back to rights. It had taken much longer to change everything back; for some reason the Doctor was operating at half speed. Not that she was complaining. The longer it took to configure everything the longer they'd have to stay, and she found she wasn't ready to leave this Doctor yet. The similarities between the two were undeniable, and yet the differences stood out like spotlights. And those contrasts drew her to this man, made the prospect of going back to the other Doctor not something she really wanted to consider right now. Yet she didn't have a choice. This was an accidental encounter, never meant to be permanent.

The panel was fitted into place and the Doctor stood, wiping his hands together. Martha turned and faced him, trying to look upbeat.

"So, I've been meaning to ask you," the Doctor began. "Where did you get one of the Curator's quills?"

Martha frowned, not expecting anything like that to be the start of this conversation. "Um, I found it, right after we were separated."

"Where?"

"It was lying in a pot of these weird plants, just kind of sticking out. Why does it matter?"

"Doesn't it seem a bit strange to you? The one book that would give us just enough help, a Librarian's quill just lying around waiting to be found?"

"What, do you think the Librarian took a tip from Bill and Ted, plans in the future what little clues we'll need then plants them in the past through one of his books?"

"Why not?"

"I still don't understand why it's important."

"It's something to think about," the Doctor began working the TARDIS controls as if laying in a course, "something to discuss. Besides, it's an unsolved piece of the puzzle that needs to be figured out."

"Right."

"I think we could use a little holiday."

Martha's brow furrowed a little, unable to keep up with the Doctor's train of thoughts. "A holiday?"

"Yes." He continued moving around the console, flipping and turning and twisting controls as he went. "We just saved the universe and now we've earned a holiday. We can work out this last problem on the road. Where would you like to go?"

"Wait. Just wait a minute, and stop pushing buttons and stuff."

The Doctor stilled and crossed his arms, giving that patented Doctor expression of forcing himself to be patient with someone too slow to keep up with him.

"We've already messed about with your future. Won't traveling with you just make it worse?"

"Why?"

"I don't know, it just seems unwise. We're not supposed to know each other."

"My life is complex. I often meet people out of order, time isn't linear."

"Yeah, I know. But..." Martha found it hard to articulate her concerns. It made her incredibly happy to know he wanted her to stay with him for a while, if even for just one more trip, but she knew it would also complicate things, make going their separate ways that much more difficult.

The Doctor eased his stance, his expression softened. "The bottom line is I'm not ready to say goodbye. Not yet. There are so many things I'd love to show you. Scorpion games at the Besme Spaceport. The fifty moons of Euresia. We could see the grand opening of the Chrysler building in New York, visit the Ancient Library of Alexandria. And think of the people we could meet. Alexander Fleming, Elizabeth Blackwell, Albert Einstein, Mary Seacole. Indulge me, please. We have a time machine. We could travel the stars for decades and you could still be back in your present before future me even knew you were gone."

"And what about the Librarian?"

"He knows things have been put back in place, thanks to us. And he'll have his hands full for a while sorting through every one of his books, making sure everything's in order."

"Not to mention all that paperwork," Martha joked.

"Exactly."

Martha's smile grew, feeling that all too familiar tug. Part of her still believed this would be a bad idea in the long run, but there really was no way she could say no. The Doctor continued switching controls, his eyes flashing with excitement, knowing he'd won.


	5. Chapter 5

**Interlude (Part Five)**   
_Author's Note: The interlude consists of a series of ficlets giving highlights of the Doctor and Martha's trips together. They're vignettes or little slice of life moments. While there are a couple of things that happen that will be mentioned later, if you would like to continue on with the heart of the story, pleaseclick here to jump past this section._

The Doctor executed one of his rougher landings of the TARDIS, knocking both Martha and himself to the floor.

"Blimey, you sure you screwed everything back in properly?"

"Hey! Backseat driving is not allowed."

Martha stood, dusting herself off. "Are we where you expected us to be?"

"We're on an abandoned coldrocket sub-orbital cruiser, left as space junk. Still has plenty of oxygen, though, enough for us anyway, and the perfect observation deck to see the dual eclipse of the frozen moons of Anetai. Stacked one on top of the other, perfectly aligned, the coronas forming a flaring figure eight."

"It sounds amazing. How often does it occur?"

"Every 5,000 years, give or take, and one of the most spectacular sites in the galaxy. Come on!"

They stepped out onto a metal gantry and started walking toward the far hatch. Martha'd been expecting the air to feel stale but it didn't even seem thin. She was about to ask the Doctor about it when they passed a red beacon and an alarm began to sound.

 _Intruder alert. Intruder alert._

"I thought you said this was a derelict ship," Martha said, looking around them.

"An automated system; I can turn it off once we reach a computer terminal."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then we'd have to ..." The Doctor paused at the sight of an armed guard coming toward them. He grabbed Martha's hand. "Run."

  


He should feel more conflicted about Martha. He knew it, understood he was playing with fire the longer they stayed together. It was borrowed time, and no manner of convoluted logic or creative spin would change that. But what use was there in being able to travel through time if you couldn't take advantage of it, create a few perks, every now and then.

Martha caught his eye from across the circle, a look of amazement and absolute joy on her face, before one of the dancers scooped her out onto the floor once more. The dance would be over soon, but he'd keep the music going if only to continue seeing her fly. He should feel more conflicted, but in the end he knew he would be willing to defy the laws of time for even one more minute of this, one more moment filled with genuine affection and unadulterated desire.

  


Drometh Station was straight out of a stereotypical science fiction story, all gleaming metal and smooth white expanses. Everything seemed to move at a leisurely pace, despite the large crowds along every corridor.

"It's the most popular holiday destination in this quadrant."

"What's there to do?"

"Anything you want. The station's a Stellar Holographic prototype. There are holographic emitters in every public area, the accommodations are all holosuites, even the appearance of the station from space can be altered through holo-projection."

"I can't believe I'm about to be in a holodeck just like on Star Trek," Martha whispered excitedly as they got into a line in front of one of the service kiosks.

"Not only that, you'll have a custom program that can't be duplicated anywhere else. All station employees work in symbiotic pairs: one is a living hologram, the other an empath."

"How can you tell which is which?"

"Not very easily. They work together to create your ultimate fantasy. The empath senses your deepest desire, the hologram instantly develops the program, and in a matter of minutes you can be living your greatest dream without ever saying a word."

"You brought me to a place designed to make my fantasies come to life?"

"Why do you look so horrified?"

"Maybe there are things I'd like to keep private."

The Doctor looked at her in disbelief. "I give you an incomparable opportunity to let your hair down and you go all shy on me." He shook his head and sighed. "Don't worry. We can ask for U-rated service ... for now."

  


She wasn't a particular fan of operatic productions on Earth. So when the Doctor suggested they see a Phoenicis Sceptri cantata at the Fourth Ivory Hall Martha was curious if less than enthused. But she was struck by the soaring rush of instruments, the silky melodies mixed with what sounded like birdsong that floated above the lilting curve of the harmony, a hushed whisper on the air. It was all so quiet, mere hints of sensation, and Martha found it incredibly moving.

At the end of the performance they climbed to the roof and watched the nearly starless sky, the deep blackness of space disrupted only by a spectrum of colors that rolled across the sky at random intervals. Martha struggled for the words to describe the experience, found there were few that seemed sufficient and those that came to mind seemed to reveal something deep and secret inside her. With anyone else she would have worried about exposing too much, but there were none of those concerns with the Doctor. He simply listened and she knew in her heart he understood.

  


"This is the Pegasi settlement on Rani, sister moon to New Mars. You can just make it out in the sky," the Doctor scanned above them, then pointed off to the left, "there, that purplish crescent just above those trees."

"New Mars is purple?"

"-Ish. Scientists and poets have been arguing about that for decades." He leaned over and whispered conspiratorially in her ear. "Every couple of years I like to stoke the fires a little, plant a bug in somebody's ear."

Martha found herself smiling, again. It seemed that's all she did these days. Laugh and smile, rinse and repeat. It was unusual when traveling with the Doctor to have such a long stretch of peaceful days. They'd encountered only a few crises on this extended vacation, everything else had been minor hiccups, small problems that were easy to put right. She'd stopped expecting their luck to change and had relaxed into the moment.

The Doctor took her hand and they walked through the tall grass, the thick fronds bending in their wake. Up ahead a small group of settlers gathered, engaged in what the Doctor described as a joining ceremony, and he and Martha stopped a respectful distance away. The air washed over their skin in waves, a soft cascade of warmth. Martha stretched out her fingers to capture the sensation and lifted her face into the sun, let the unusual light sink into her skin. And when the Doctor wrapped his arm around her waist she lit up from within.

  


"I've never been a big fan of zoos." Martha hugged herself as they walked around the cages and enclosures, passing the most exotic creatures she'd probably ever see and unable to enjoy it. "They just feel wrong."

"Especially in this century. With all the other alternatives this is particular cruel."

"Well if you don't like it either why are we here?"

"To see him." The Doctor stopped in front of a small aviary that housed a bird about the size of a robin. Its plumage was an unremarkable brown, its beak oddly crooked, its song no more than averagely interesting. Martha moved closer to get a better look and it seemed to watch her intently.

"It's the last of the sharptailed armorwings."

"The last? Once it dies the species is extinct?"

"And it's old; it probably won't live to see another winter, even less caged in here."

Martha moved around the aviary, the armorwing following her with its grey-speckled eyes. "I wonder if it knows there are no others, that it's alone. I can't imagine..." She glanced at the Doctor, sorry for having started down this train of thought.

"We could take him, bring him back, oh, a thousand years. Let him live out his days as part of a flock."

"Could we do that?"

"Why not?"

"Can he survive in the wild?"

"Enough to get by. He's old. There won't be any fights for dominance in his future. The armorwings are communal birds; he'll do fine."

Martha looked from the Doctor and back to the bird, then nodded her head, exhilaration building at the prospect of what they were about to do.

"But you're wrong, you know," the Doctor continued, giving her hand a squeeze. "I'm not alone."

  


It was the first day they encountered real danger and Martha found it ironic that it happened when they were back on Earth. They crouched in a small enclave along a rocky cliff, bullets ripping shards of stone and clumps of dirt from above their heads, and the Doctor told her he'd been sleeping in the Zero Room ever since that first night. It was a spontaneous, embarrassed confession, and Martha could see it was only a small part of what he wanted her to know. But she also understood that even on its own it was significant, an acknowledgment of his struggles, that he wasn't infallible, and that he had finally decided to put an end to his self-imposed punishment.

After they'd made it back to the TARDIS, only slightly the worse for wear, they cobbled together something to eat and the Doctor told her about the Time War. Martha didn't let on that she already knew the story, realized it was important for the Doctor to tell her. But then he surprised her with the whole story, the one her Doctor never told. Every detail not as a historical event he'd lived through but his personal story and the choices he'd made, the actions he'd taken. She held his hand and wept with him, tears of empathy and tremendous pain, of loss and grief.

That night she wondered if she would ever have that kind of strength, to destroy her own people for the sake of all of creation. The last words he spoke, that he hadn't tried to heal himself until he'd met her, kept her awake for hours. And she cried once more, for all that the Doctor had gone through, for the thought of him suffering and using that pain to punish himself. Martha didn't know how or what she could do, but she vowed to do everything she could to help him find peace.

  


It hadn't been anything she was expecting. They landed on a well-manicured lawn surrounded by a crisply painted white picket fence. The cottage looked as if it came straight out of a storybook; Martha wouldn't have been surprised if it had been the inspiration for many a fairytale.

"This is Frierice Ellesane's home?"

"Why do you sound so surprised?"

"It's so ... quaint."

"Were you expecting the Taj Mahal?"

"Can you picture me in a fancy roost like that?" An older woman rounded the corner, carrying hedge clippers as if ready to lob off the Doctor's head. By her gait and the slight roll in her shoulders, Martha suspected she was much older than she looked. She had a full head of silvery-grey hair that looked as if she'd attempted to give it some kind of order hours ago and had ignored it since. And her eyes were vibrant and on fire, revealing wells of time and years of knowledge.

"Frierice, Martha Jones. Martha, Frierice Ellesane."

"Never known you to bring a friend along. She must be special," she said with a wag of her eyebrows before thrusting the clippers at the Doctor and ushering Martha inside. "Put those away, Time Lord."

There was only one large room inside and the things that said 'house' were relegated to second-class standing: the sitting area, bed and kitchen were all crammed into a corner. The bulk of the space was a workroom, complete with metal- and woodworking equipment and a large table covered with maps and star charts.

Frierice went straight to the oven and pulled out what looked like gingersnaps as the Doctor stepped inside.

"You're baking biscuits?" Martha exclaimed.

"Biscuits!" Frierice filled the room with loud peals of laughter, great round bellows of merriment, and one of the most pleasant and joyous sounds Martha had ever heard. She started to giggle, looked at the Doctor and they both started to laugh.

"Darling, I wouldn't be able to bake a biscuit if someone gave me the contents of every titanium mine on Riga. No, these are thermonium chips. They power my skiff, anywhere up to 1,000 kilometers. The Doctor clued me in on that little trick some forty years ago now."

"How long have you two known each other?" Martha asked, walking over to help remove the chips from the baking tray.

"Most of my life I'd say. Hitched a ride with him once or twice." She stopped fussing over the tray and looked at the Doctor. "Of course, he didn't look like this. What's up with those ears?"

"Is this the new thing in hospitality? Not offer refreshments and insult the guests?"

"Well you know where everything is; get your *friend* a drink." She turned excitedly to Martha. "Would you like to see my ride? Maybe take her for a spin?"

"Yeah, I'd love to you."

"Hang on a minute," the Doctor protested.

"Martha and I are gonna go cruising. You just cool your jets until we get back. I know, why don't you make us something to eat."

Martha looked back over her shoulder as they left and laughed at the dumbfounded expression on the Doctor's face.

  


The bazaar was so crowded Martha could barely see the booths let alone the wares. But the bustle and energy were nice, the atmosphere electric. They were just about to pass a small stall when the Doctor doubled back in a rush. She'd never seen him haggle before, and as with most things he was clearly very good at it. It looked to be a small stone that had caught the Doctor's attention, and Martha did wonder how he planned on paying for it now that he and the merchant had come to an agreement. He took something out of his pocket, just as small as the item he wanted, the merchant looked it over carefully, and then agreed to the trade.

His face was unreadable when he came back over to her, his hands folded around his purchase. Martha debated whether to be stubborn and not ask him his secret, or give in and find out what it was all about. But before she could make up her mind a slow smile crept onto his face and he opened his hands to reveal a ring. It was the most unusual thing she'd ever seen, a solid band of some material but the coloring was like nothing on Earth. He told her it was made of psychic stone, a rock that imprints an image of your thoughts or feelings within its form. When she looked she saw a picture of their joined hands, repeated around the band, seemingly carved inside the solid stone.

Back on the TARDIS she held the ring tightly in her hand, almost afraid it would slip away if she loosened her grip. Today it wasn't enough that they could travel backwards and forwards through time. Today she wanted to stop the clock entirely, freeze it in this moment, at the end of this day.

She looked up into his gentle face, his kind eyes, felt the fullness in her heart. The barest touch of lips but it resonated like the tremors of an earthquake rocking her soul. And the second time he brought her to his bedroom he stayed.

  


  
**Part Six**   


Martha wasn't sure how she expected to feel this morning. She was happy, at peace, still slightly off balance but in a very good way. But she also had a sense of dread poking at her, insistent and getting louder. She played with the ring around her finger, twisted it clockwise, counterclockwise, and back, and all the while as she walked down the passage toward the console room knew something unwanted but not unexpected would be waiting for her.

Just before she reached the door, the TARDIS jolted making her fall into the wall. It felt as though they had started to dematerialize for a couple of seconds but the action was aborted. She was all ready to make a joke about not engaging the parking brake as she entered the room, but the look on the Doctor's face cast all jokes aside. Today really was the day.

"What was that?" she asked, crossing down to the console.

"It's nothing. Just a little hiccup in the autonomic maintenance system."

"The autonomic..."

"Yes, so, where should we go today?"

"Doctor."

"It's nothing we have to concern ourselves with."

"Other than the fact it was the Librarian."

They stared at each other through a long minute, a range of emotions playing across their faces. Finally the Doctor huffed out a mirthless laugh, knowing he was foolish for thinking she wouldn't work it out. She was far too smart, too sensitive to situations and to him, to be misled.

"He sent a message a few days ago with the coordinates of his ship, said he'd make plans for our arrival."

"And you thought you'd just ignore it."

"I'm a Time Lord. He doesn't give the orders."

Martha simply gave him a look. "He's trying to fix his mistake, put things back the way they're supposed to be."

There were so many things the Doctor wanted to say, but in the end they didn't change anything. They both knew this arrangement was only transitory, that in the end she'd have to return to her place in the timeline and he'd have to go off on his own. There was a time when being alone was all he wanted. Now even just the prospect of it made him feel lost.

Martha closed the distance between them and laid her hand on his arm. "It's hard for me, too, you know, the idea of leaving you. But the longer I stay, the harder it will be, for both of us."

"We could always keep on going. I've outrun stronger beings than him."

"You know as well as I do that it's time. We've been pushing our luck as it is. I mean, how much longer do you think it'll be before I let some huge thing slip that happens in your future? I know you said the world won't come to an end but I'm not so sure about that. The things you've yet to see and do, who's to say that my being in the picture wouldn't change everything. The people in our lives affect our decisions, what paths we choose to take. The places you're supposed to go, the people you're supposed to meet, it all might change. Your life, it's important and it shouldn't be messed with, not even a little. No one's should."

The Doctor took her hand, and shifted around so he could sit on the jumpseat, pulling her close to stand between his legs.

"If you're expecting me to admit you're right..."

"Wouldn't dream of it," her voice soft, trying so hard to sound light. "Besides, what would my Doctor do without me?"

The Doctor grimaced. "I wish you'd stop saying that."

"What?"

"*My* Doctor."

"I don't know how else..."

"It sounds like you're ... classifying us and I'm not ..." The Doctor trailed off, clearly frustrated. He knew exactly how it felt every time she added that qualifier but found it hard to admit he wanted her to think of him as *her* Doctor, to think of their time together as taking precedence over what she would do with his regenerated self. It felt almost as if he was coming in second, and isn't that how she always described how he made her feel in the future? That she was second best? It was like karma in reverse, he supposed, and he didn't like it.

Martha watched as the Doctor struggled to order his thoughts, a slightly sullen look on his face. But there was something else there, something he didn't want her to see but the edges still seeped through.

"I wish you'd met me first. I wish I was the one you thought of as 'your' Doctor."

Martha reached up and gently caressed the Doctor's cheek. "You're right, I'm sorry. It's force of habit, I suppose, or trying to keep myself from falling too hard and too deep. It's a moot point really because you are the first. The first to see me for me and no one else, the first to learn to trust me, the first to want me to stay and not just so you won't be lonely or because getting in trouble is more fun with company. You are *my* Doctor."

The Doctor gathered her in, kissed her fiercely, possessively, as if he was staking his claim across time. And Martha clung to him, wrapped herself in his spirit, in the very essence of his heart. They pulled slightly apart, needing air, and the intensity in the Doctor's eyes made her gasp.

"Don't ever doubt your worth, no matter what I say or do. Don't ever question yourself because of me. I don't know who I become but in that respect I'm full of it. You are beyond fantastic, Martha, and don't ever let me tell you otherwise."

Martha could only nod, unable to give voice to the feelings that overwhelmed her. They held each other quietly in the soft glow of the TARDIS, let themselves drift across a storm of unspoken words, until they reached calmer waters.

"So this is goodbye," Martha finally said, forcing herself not to look away.

"Let's save that for after the Librarian. We'll deal with him, and then ..." he let the thought drift off, the word not needing to be said again, at least not now. Martha smiled in response, glad to put it off, if only for a little while.

  


The Librarian was waiting for them when they stepped out of the TARDIS, clearly expecting the Doctor's antagonism.

"If you ever try to remotely control my TARDIS again..."

"I know, I know, and I do apologize. Sincerely."

Martha was surprised he chose not to chide the Doctor for ignoring his first message, but she imagined he was trying to keep things relatively civil.

"Yes, so you should." Without encountering challenge or rebuke, the Doctor's anger fizzled slightly, settled into a general irritability over the situation they found themselves in rather than directed at the Librarian specifically.

"I owe both of you a world of thanks. My people and I owe you a great debt."

Martha looked around the well-appointed space, reminiscent of a reading room at a public library. "Given up the sparse look?" she asked with a small laugh. "Decided to go with visible décor?"

"I was behaving most unusually, it's no wonder you didn't trust me."

"What was all that hocus pocus stuff?"

"They can write their story as you or I might think about what to do next," the Doctor interjected. "He wants to eat and there's food. He wants to sit and there's a chair."

"But," the Librarian added, "that's not something we normally do. I'm afraid it's just one of the ways I was reacting to the manipulations to my story."

"Well, this is much nicer, much less weird. I think you'll be wanting this back?" Martha added, handing the Librarian the computer archive.

"Thank you. I'm sorry it turned out to be so unhelpful."

"I take it everything's as it should be now?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes, for the most part, but we have it well in hand. There are one or two things, though. I'd like to speak to you, Doctor, about some safeguards I'm trying to implement, new protocols that hopefully will keep something like this from happening again."

"Good." The Doctor's irritation lifted a little more and he immediately began following the Librarian, Martha close behind. "I don't know why you didn't have any protections in place before."

"It was hard for us to imagine that one of our own would be capable of such actions, I suppose." The Librarian stopped abruptly and Martha nearly walked into him. "Oh, Martha, could I ask you a favor? One of my brethren has been making some final calculations related to these safeguards, but he cuts himself off from our telepathic link when he's working. Could you find him and collect his research for me? He's in Lab 8, down that corridor. The Doctor and I will be just over there by the computer bank."

"Sure. Lab 8? Right, see you in a bit." She smiled at the Doctor then headed through the archway and down the hall. She had hoped to have a chance to look around the place. If this is where the Librarian normally lives, it was a step up. Not as large as his home in the Gateway, but that had been off-putting. From what she could see, it felt more like a large house than a space station. There were several rooms off this passage, with two sets of wooden spiral stairs in the center leading to both upper and lower levels. The walls looked like old-fashioned paneling and there were wall sconces all along the corridor that gave off a natural, almost candlelight glow. The entire effect was very inviting.

She found Lab 8 but there was no one inside. There were a couple of tables laden with equipment but it didn't look as if anyone had touched them for some time. There was a folder on a desk toward the back of the room, so Martha walked over and began flipping through it. Not sure if it was what the Librarian was looking for or not, she decided to take it to him anyway, _and suggest he invest in some interstation communication devices and not rely on telepathy_ , she joked to herself.

 _That's strange,_ she thought, picking up the folder. _The surface is dusty, all except where the folder was..._ Her thoughts were cut off at the sound of the TARDIS. "What the?" She ran back into the hall and down to the Librarian's study, making it through the door just in time to see the TARDIS disappear. The Librarian sat in a chair, his hands folded, watching her.

"What's going on? Where did he go?"

"He's gone back to continue his own timestream, just as you must do."

"But he wouldn't just leave like that? What happened?" Martha could feel anxiety and anger rising, and more than a little panic and sorrow. He couldn't have just left? How could he go without seeing her first. It didn't make sense.

"I'm afraid he didn't know to say goodbye because as far as he's concerned you've never met. He doesn't remember you."

"Stop it. That's really not funny. Just tell me what's going on."

"I implanted a chip just behind his left ear; it will look like nothing more than a small birthmark. Its purpose is to stabilize a small revision I made to his story, which was to write you out of it."

Martha couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was like some sick joke, a prank inflicted on you by a group of bullies. It never occurred to her that this would even be a possibility. Never be able to see each other again; yes, that she was prepared for. Have the other erased from their memories? It was overkill, like swatting a fly with a baseball bat, and inordinately cruel.

She sank down into the chair opposite the Librarian, realized she was still holding the folder and dropped it to the ground.

"Are there even any protocols?"

"They've already been implemented."

"You lie so easily I don't know when to believe you."

"I regret that these events have sullied your opinion of me, Martha. Deeply regret it."

"What did you say to him to convince him to do this?"

"He doesn't know it's there."

Martha's jaw dropped, it was all so unbelievable. "I suppose in some sick way it feels better to know it happened without his knowledge. He's not going to like it, knowing you've messed with his mind."

"You're assuming that he'll ever find out."

"You don't know him very well if you don't think he will." Martha stood and paced around the seating area. "Are you telling me all this because you're giving me a choice or because it won't make any difference once you've wiped my memory clean too?"

"It was only necessary to alter the Doctor's story; you can retain everything."

"But why was it necessary at all? I didn't tell him anything."

"There are things he must do, things that may not happen if he stays with you."

"I know that!" Martha snapped. "We both knew that!" She took a couple of deep breaths, tried to push her temper down a notch. "I don't understand why he had to forget everything we did, all the time we spent together."

"Please sit down; I'll try to explain as best I can."

Martha looked at him, deciding whether she should trust anything he said. In the end even if he told her only part of the truth, she knew she needed to hear it. She walked back over to him and sat down.

"First, what's your real name?"

"I am Librarian Tomelty."

"And the Curator? The other Librarian?"

"He was Librarian Rinal."

"All right, Librarian Tomelty, explain it to me."

"I did no more than what I initially stated. I removed you from his memory of recent activities. If I had made substantial revisions, removed the events and what you accomplished, it would have erased the information he learned, the new knowledge he obtained."

"So he thinks he stopped the Curator by himself."

"Yes."

"And everything else, from when he found me in his TARDIS to when you sent me on a wild goose chase, that's all gone."

"Yes and no. I couldn't simply erase you. He needs to retain who he is, who he has become through knowing you; all of that will remain."

"How exactly do you do that?"

"Suggestion. Replacement. Substitution."

"You know what? I really don't want to know. The bottom line is it's only me that he has to forget. I'm just that special, am I?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

"I think we both know why you are that special."

Martha's face flushed with heat and she looked down to evade the Librarian's eyes.

"The Doctor has an extraordinary amount of discipline. If it were only his logic and reasoning coming into play, maybe he would proceed as normal. But subconsciously, there are simply too many variables, too many ways he might unknowingly make different choices, take alternative paths, that could completely change the course of events. To be honest, I don't know if leaving your influence on his personality and psyche won't change things beyond what I suspect."

"But don't you control a lot of that?"

"I don't write all the stories. And there are some whose stories I can't tell at all, merely do some slight editing."

"I'm an edit in the Doctor's life. A small birthmark behind his ear." She got up again, began slowly moving around the room. "I went off with the Doctor thinking some day I'd just come back to my life on the day I left it, pick up where I left off. Except you can't. I mean, how can you after you've seen the things I've seen, after you've done the things I've done. From that first day everything was different and it would never be the same. And now there's a big part of me that never wants to go back to the way things were, wants to keep traveling the stars. Only now, after all this, I think I'm with the wrong Doctor and I can never go back to the right one." She stopped and looked down at her ring. "We never got a chance to say goodbye."

Martha turned to face the empty space where the TARDIS had stood, twisting her ring around her finger. Had it really been a month since she stumbled into the wrong TARDIS and found exactly what she'd been looking for? She'd come alive over the last few weeks, restored her confidence and faith in herself, things she couldn't believe she'd let slip away. It'd been a little crazy and stressful, but when wasn't it when you were traveling with the Doctor. But it had also been vibrant and shimmering fresh, searing and thundering, sweet and savory. It might break her heart but she refused to regret a moment of it.

"Would you like a real tour of Stormwing?"

Martha turned toward the Librarian when he spoke but couldn't register anything he said. She looked at him blankly for a moment. "I'm sorry?"

"Stormwing, my space station, would you like me to give you a tour?"

"No." She cleared her throat, blinked back the tears that were forming. "Thank you, but I think I should just leave now."

The Librarian nodded and pushed himself to his feet. "I can put you in your Doctor's TARDIS at the moment you would have entered it."

"Fine."

"It will likely be slightly painful. You may feel sick."

"I don't care, just do it."

"We'll need to go to the array. It's a kind of time scoop. It's what I can use to get you back home."

Martha nodded and began to follow the Librarian out of the room but then stopped abruptly. "I realize I won't know if you take away my memory of the last few weeks..."

"I told you, that won't be necessary."

"But know this. If you do, I will never forgive you. Not such a big threat, I know, why should you really care. But all the same, you better remember that."

He turned to face her, looking sad and weary. "On the contrary, Martha, I would care a great deal. And you have my word, you will not lose anything of your time with the Doctor. Not a moment."

"Well, I guess we'll see if that's a lie or the truth," and she pushed past him and out into the hall.

 

It had been painful - the Librarian hadn't lied about that – and slightly disorienting. Martha bent over for a moment, hands on knees, breathing through the pain, collecting her thoughts. She was in the console room, everything was as it should be, except for the Time Lord down the road. _Good,_ she thought, standing upright, _it's all still there, everything._ She smiled, absently touching her ring, relieved not to have lost one of the most important experiences of her life. There'd be time to write it all down later, to document every moment while it was still fresh in her mind. Right now, she had a swarm to help catch. _Lab one, upper supply closet,_ she reminded herself, jogging out the rear door.

  
  
**  
_1969_   
**   


Martha adjusted her hold on the bags in her hand as she walked up the steps to their flat. As much as at one time she envisioned a different relationship with the Doctor, this picture of domesticity was never part of it.

When they'd first been touched by the Weeping Angel, they'd fallen naturally into an old routine: assess the situation, figure out options, hunt for anything that could help them. But soon the need for food and a place to sleep became more pressing, and with no cash machines and the equivalent of Monopoly money in Martha's wallet, they needed to take care of more mundane requirements and Martha was happy to take the lead. The more time the Doctor spent on finding a way to get the TARDIS back the sooner they could get out of here.

But she'd still been surprised at how useless the Doctor was at daily, run-of-the-mill activities. Working, shopping, unclogging the sink, even just answering the phone. It all seemed beyond his ability not to understand but to actually do. It reminded her of that song from Pippin, an extraordinary man unable to do ordinary things. At first she thought it was a kind of Time Lord attitude, thinking he was beyond basic human tasks. But now she wondered if there really was a kind of mental block.

Martha thought she could deal with all of that, in essence end up supporting him and keeping the flat presentable, if it weren't for his attitude toward her. Ever since they were torn backward through time he'd been strange. Not really distant, but unsure of her, as if they'd only just met. He was hesitant when he spoke to her, didn't seem to understand her sense of humor, and there were times when she'd catch him staring at her as if he wasn't sure who she really was. It was beginning to be both creepy and annoying. The longer they were here the stranger he became, and with every day of almost formal reticence the more she wanted him to know, needed him to know, that they'd known each other long before they actually met, that it'd been magic, that it'd been like a dream.

It had been hard to adjust after she returned to this Doctor. She couldn't quite believe she had ever seen any similarities between them; they seemed like polar opposites in every way and for a short time she was nearly resentful of him. All she wanted was his predecessor, how that Doctor saw her, how he made her feel. She could still smell him, could still see his eyes, bright and shining and brimming with warmth. And his smile, broad and a bit manic, almost laughable; she would've done anything to see that smile again.

Over time it got better. She stopped comparing and simply let them exist apart from each other. And she remembered what she liked about this Doctor, while finding time each day to remember and honor the other. She'd gotten into the habit of looking at the chip from time to time, just a casual glance. In a strange way seeing it felt as if there was always a part of her Doctor there and a part of herself with him; just one look always put her back on a younger TARDIS with a different Doctor and a time when she loved deeply and was loved in return.

She walked into the flat, found him as always on the couch fiddling with his timey-wimey device. He gave her a long and penetrating look, his brow furrowed, then he returned his attention to his work without a word. This was a new treat, the stare as if Martha was an unidentified being followed by silence. It made her want to hurl the groceries at his head. It'd been a long and tiring day, the bigoted shop assistant had been on duty tonight, and the last thing she wanted were uncomfortable and awkward silences with someone who at the very least should be able to help her unwind. _I think you're due a little chip therapy,_ she said to herself, just stifling a giggle. She hadn't looked at the chip in a while, not since being marooned in the '60s, and until today hadn't thought about it much at all. But a little glimpse seemed a fitting reward for the kind of day she'd had.

The shopping put away, she slowly made her way behind the Doctor, absently tidying things as she went. Squaring up a pile of magazines she cast a casual look but the chip wasn't there.

"Is there anything wrong?" the Doctor asked, not taking his attention away from the device.

"No," she replied, a little too quickly. Her mind raced, trying to understand how it could possibly not be there. It didn't make any sense. It had survived a complete cellular regeneration and was still intact. What could have happened?

"It's just I thought I heard you startle a bit."

"No."

"A little gasp?"

"No, no," she stammered a little, trying to think of a convincing lie. When nothing came she decided the half-truth didn't sound that implausible so bucked up some courage and continued. "I just always thought you had a birthmark sort of thing, behind your ear. I don't know why, I just could have sworn, but obviously I was wrong."

For the first time since Martha came home the Doctor put his work down and focused his complete attention on her. "You of all people should know that wasn't a birthmark."

They stared at each other for an interminable amount of time. Part of her expected to see *his* eyes, a soft blue instead of warm brown. Martha could feel herself falling, a slow descent onto jagged rocks. She'd thought about this moment, more times than she cared to admit. What they would say, how she would feel. But she'd never imagined this acute sense of loss. Now that this Doctor remembered, in a strange way it was as if her Doctor was even further away.

"Come sit down." She was surprised how calm the Doctor sounded, gentle even. He'd been so cold toward her recently she half expected him to be angry. She moved around the couch and sat in the far corner, needing the distance between them.

"When did you find it?"

"I didn't. Somehow it didn't make the jump with us when the Angel sent us here."

"You've known all this time," Martha said, almost to herself. It suddenly all made sense, the Doctor's strange behavior, the unpleasant stiltedness. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I could ask you that question."

"I've thought about saying something; I think about it all the time."

"Why didn't you?"

"Would you have believed me?"

The Doctor held her gaze for a moment then shook his head. "No, probably not. It was so confusing. We'd just been thrown backwards in time, we'd lost the TARDIS, and suddenly all these intense emotions came swarming into me, seemingly from nowhere. At first I thought it was some strange side effect of the time travel, something about the touch of an Angel. But then I started to remember: Pegasi, Drometh, meeting Mary Seacole and introducing you to good old Frierice." He reached across and pulled the chain Martha wore out from underneath her shirt, revealing the psychic stone ring. "I started to remember you."

Martha suddenly found it impossible to sit still. She stood a little too quickly, masked the slight dizziness by gripping the back of the armchair as she walked around it toward the center of the room. This was all ridiculously absurd and yet inevitable. She cradled her ring in her hand, held it close to her chest.

"I can imagine how uncomfortable this all must be for you."

"Not in the way you might think. But you," the Doctor's voice rose, standing in a swell of exuberance, "you've been living with this for much longer than me."

"Yeah. It was a bit hard at first."

"Even harder after we landed here, I bet. Me all moody and peculiar." He mirrored Martha's steps across the room, wouldn't let her look away.

"At least you weren't being weird for no reason. There were times I thought you blamed me for getting us stuck here." She laughed, a shaky nervous titter.

"No, that was completely my fault. And really, I don't even dislike being here; there are worse years to live in. I'll tell you what I don't like. Being manipulated by a Librarian; neuro-implants in my brain, my memories rewritten."

"I told him you'd be angry about that."

"I mean, having a thimblebum gooflunk taking away part of my past."

Then Martha did laugh, full and clear, lifting some of the tension from her chest. "Thimblebum?"

"If the shoe fits." The Doctor suddenly became serious. "I still don't know how to process everything, all the thoughts I have whenever I look at you. I keep wanting to tell you, well I mean, I suppose I want you to know that I..."

"No." Martha cut him off, vehemently and abruptly. "No," she repeated, but softer. "Those were his feelings, not yours. I admit for a long time I would have done anything to hear you say those words. But now, now what I want most is your respect. To know you see me for me, not as a poor substitute for someone else. To know I'm here not because of a favor or you think you owe me."

"Oh but I do owe you," the Doctor jumped in, moving a couple of steps closer. "I was frightened, bitter. The only way I knew to survive was to seal myself off from real emotions, from other beings. You helped me to feel again, you saved me from myself. I owe you everything."

"But I mean..."

"I know what you mean. I told you before that I was an idiot and I was right."

"Actually I think you said you were full of it."

His smile was rich and easy, and diffused any remaining discomfort Martha was feeling.

"And full of it I am. I think you're brilliant and yet I've been taking you for granted, acting as if you're not good enough, which makes me a prat. Because you're beyond good enough. You're amazing. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for ever making you doubt that."

He pulled her into a full-bodied hug, wrapped her in his arms, and for the first time in ages everything felt right. There was no more longing, no more wondering 'what if.' She would always have feelings for this man, but they were different, less defined and paled in comparison to what she felt for the other Doctor, her Doctor. Those feelings were matchless, and at long last she wasn't sad about it, wasn't sad about losing him. He had given her a strength and confidence she'd let erode while traveling with this Doctor, had helped her restore her faith in herself. And she in turn had helped him to live again, started opening that door that one day would lead him to a London hospital and the start of a remarkable journey she would never regret.

"So, what if I never tried to look for the chip or gave any indication I knew it was there? Would you never have said anything?"

"Ah, then I would've implemented Plan B."

"Which was?"

"Well I didn't have to think of one, did I?"

"I'm surprised I waited so long to take a peek," she confessed.

"Was it at least normal looking?"

"Depending on my mood it was either horrific or beautiful. I hated it sometimes, and other times it reminded me of that month."

"Special memories."

"I'm glad you have them back."

"Me too."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"What happened that made you regenerate?"

"You mean 'how did I die?'"

Martha winced, but the Doctor only smiled.

"I'll tell you, I absolutely will tell you. But right now," he took her hand and started heading for the door, "right now I think it's about time I stopped treating this as some kind of prison or we're in exile or something."

"What?"

"We're in London in 1969. With a chance to experience it not as tourists just passing through but to live it, breathe it."

"I've been living it."

"You've been working. I think it's high time I showed you more," he declared, helping her on with her jacket.

Martha watched as he put on his coat, that kind of haphazard manic flourish he used for so many things. But then he stopped as he reached for the door and turned to her with earnest and intense eyes.

"I almost forgot the most important thing I need to say to you. Thank you."

Martha smiled, incredibly bright and broad, happiness, pride and at last peace radiating from within. She took his arm and they set out together, Martha and the Doctor, to discover what secrets 1969 would be willing to reveal.


End file.
